


Nicole's Official Unofficial Season Five

by WeBuiltThePyramids



Series: Afterward [1]
Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Fly, Eventual Waige, Eventual team reunion, F/M, Fix-It, Quintis - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-05-05 20:35:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14626551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeBuiltThePyramids/pseuds/WeBuiltThePyramids
Summary: Can our favorite characters still save the world while working against each other? Is there any hope for Fly after Florence's finale admission? Can Waige find their way back to each other? And what happens with the Quintis adoption story? My attempt at giving these characters a resolution, because CBS has decided if we want more we have to do it ourselves.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was hoping you all would never read this fic. But here goes. Ten chapters (well, a prologue and nine full chapters), making up my official headcanon for season five. Maybe if I do a good enough job it can be yours, too.
> 
> Note: this does not exist in the same universe as The Cyclone Trap. That fic is more for fun. This is serious. I mean it, this may be the hardest I've ever worked on something. Thanks to Chelsea and Laura for looking over my outline all those weeks ago when we still hoped this wouldn't ever be published.

 

The first two weeks following the blowup, their tiny team focused solely on work, lining up jobs, distributing duties, perfecting their efficiency by spending as little time actually together as possible. Walter tried not to think about what the others might be doing, tried not to think about how the three people who were with him before Paige entered their lives were the three who left with her, and how the two people who he initially wanted nothing to do with were the ones who had stayed. The three of them didn't talk about what happened, and he and Florence avoided each other whenever they didn't have to present a united front at a consultation.

It was an arrangement that worked, until he saw Paige again. Then he couldn't keep pretending everything was okay. He couldn't continue telling himself that screw it, he didn't need her or the others anyway. And he certainly couldn't keep putting off a conversation that he needed to have with the woman he now saw every day, the woman whose presence was the entire reason he didn't take Paige out for her birthday the week before. So, when Florence brought him a solution she had created in her lab, one they needed for the afternoon's work, he hesitated when she turned away, then spoke up. "Florence, can you come here for a moment?"

She turned, a somber look on her face. He thought he saw a bit of dread mixed in there too. "Yeah?"

She sounded tired. Walter took a breath. "I know you didn't…you weren't trying to cause issues between me and Paige. I don't blame you, and…" he wondered if it was wrong to speak for his ex, even if he was sure she would agree. "…I, I don't think she does either."

Florence gave a small, formal looking nod. "Thank you."

"But, uh…" he leaned forward, resting his arms on the desk and folding his hands. "I do need to make it clear that nothing is going to happen with you and me."

"I know," Florence said, almost immediately. "I didn't say anything before I did because of your relationship, and…because I care about Paige. And I know how much you love her. You being single now doesn't change that."

Walter nodded. "I wasn't expecting you to be so understanding."

She appeared defensive. "Why wouldn't I be? I'm not a stone – cold, home - wrecking bitch. Sorry," she said, almost immediately, dropping her eyes. The silence that hung in the air was uncomfortable. Walter opened his mouth to speak to discover he really had no idea how to respond. The silence continued, and if Walter didn't know it wasn't an impossibility, he would have sworn the seconds were stretching out longer. Of course, time was a construct, so…he wasn't sure about anything anymore.

After a moment or so – one that could have very well lasted an hour, for all Walter knew, it wasn't like there was a defined amount of time that a  _moment_  lasted anyway, Florence lifted her head. "But honestly. It's okay. I understand. And I enjoy our professional relationship, and I don't want to lose that." She pressed her lips together. "We've all lost enough already."

Walter nodded. He wanted to ask her if she missed Sylvester, even if just as a friend. But he didn't know if he wanted to hear her answer. He didn't want to know if his friend was just going to get hurt even more, should they ever actually talk about what happened that night.

"I want us to still be friends, Walter," Florence added after another uncomfortable, heavy silence. "I don't have many, you know. I promise I won't do anything. I just hate that we've been actively staying away from each other. I want us to be friends in addition to coworkers."

He nodded. "Good. Me too."

"Good." She nodded, stood there another moment, and then turned to head back to her lab. Walter watched her go, pleased with how the conversation had gone, but not feeling much better. It's not like anything was going to change now. Paige already knew he didn't have feelings for Florence.

And it hadn't mattered.


	2. Chapter 2

_Piercing words, eyes are red, watched your taillights in the rain. Empty heart filled with regret; I know we were both to blame. And I'm not sorry that it's over, but for the way we let it end…_

"Can we listen to something a little less depressing?" Ralph asked.

"What?"

Ralph sighed, resting his chin on the table and watching his mother flip pancakes – or at least try to. This was an attempt by Paige to do what she'd been trying to do a lot lately –  _have a quality morning with my son._  "We haven't spent quality time together in a while," she had said.

Yes, they had. They'd been seeing each other all the time. They'd had too many family mornings to count.

Although as far as his mother was apparently concerned, those moments  _didn't_  count. Not anymore.

"Our payment for the Gettleman job should come in today," Paige said. She hadn't changed the music, but had turned the volume down. "That will be a nice chunk of change for us. And we found out last night, after you went to bed, that we got the Spierman project. Scorpion wanted that job, you know."

"Are you happy that you got the job because you got the job, or because you getting it means Scorpion didn't?"

"I am glad that it was determined that our young company was the best one for the job," Paige said, frowning down at the wrinkly pancakes.  _No offense, Ralph, but your mom's griddle cakes look like balls_. He could hear Toby's voice in his head so clearly it was almost as if the behaviorist was sitting right there. "Especially," Paige continued, "given that Scorpion has been around for years and was probably given jobs it really didn't deserve, it's nice to see that we're being taken seriously and these companies are seeing the light."

"You  _do_  realize that you're insulting yourself when you say the team you were on didn't deserve what they did, right?"

"Not at all," Paige said, smiling triumphantly when a pancake flipped cleanly. "I was the liaison for the company, meaning it was my job to BS our way into jobs we had no business taking."

"Scorpion had an almost impossibly high rate of achievement," Ralph said. "If we were a TV show we would probably have been criticized for being unrealistically successful. That's not exactly a matter of opinion; it's firmly in fact territory."

"Well, success is measured in many ways," Paige said, putting the nicest looking pancake on a plate and sliding it down to him. "Centipede Partners is going to be successful in all the ways Scorpion was, and in all the ways it wasn't, too." She took some of the messed – up pancakes on her plate and drizzled them with syrup before coming to sit beside him. "And Ralph, I promise you, we're going to be so happy."

He didn't believe it. He was on his mother's side in all of this – he had to be, she was his  _mother_  – but how on earth could they be happier now? Their family was fractured. The only person in his life as important to him as his mother was a forbidden topic unless it was something negative. He looked down. "It's just a lot, Mom."

"Oh sweetheart, I know it is." She put her hand on his back. "But it was hard when your father cheated on us, too. And we got through that. We can get through this."

Ralph felt a flash of anger.  _Walter didn't cheat on us._  He wouldn't say it. But this wasn't even close to the same thing.

_Walter didn't walk out on us._

Not even close.

_Walter didn't decide he didn't want us._

Not. Close. At. All.

_Walter didn't think we weren't worth the effort to keep us together._

Nope. That was his mother in this particular situation.

He didn't say any of what he wanted to say. He just shrugged.

"I promise we'll be okay, baby," Paige said again, rubbing his back and then bringing her hand up to ruffle his hair. "All we need is each other, okay? And you'll always have me. I know being a teenager now that makes it a little hard to believe, and maybe some days you'll wish you didn't have me, but we're family. End of the day, we're always there for each other, and no matter what you do or think or feel, no matter how hard it is, I'll always be right here beside you, okay?"

 _I thought putting out that effort was too exhausting for you._  Ralph wondered if he was being fair. He knew the relationship between a parent and a child was different than between anyone else. He knew that adult relationships were complicated.

But for a while, he had a family – the exact one he wanted – and now it was gone and he wasn't even entirely sure he understood everything that happened and he was angry with his mother for saying she was never happy with Walter because Ralph knew her better than anyone else and s _he was_  and he just missed the man he had just been starting to believe would be his dad  _so damn much._  That was the worst part about being the kid in this situation. His mom could choose whether or not she wanted to be in a relationship. She got to choose if Ralph would ever have a dad again. Whether or not it happened – and whether or not it was a person Ralph wanted in that role – wasn't up to him. He had absolutely no agency in such an important part of his life.

He wondered what his mom would say if…

"Ralph, eat," Paige said. "It's gonna get cold."

"Can I ask you something?" He said.

She slowly put down her fork. "What is it, hon?"

"Walter is really important to me," he said. "Can I see him?" Ralph felt his heart begin to beat faster at the cold expression on his mother's face. "He's my intellectual equal. It's good to stimulate my mind."

"Yeah, he thought so too."

Right. Considering his mother's accusations, that probably wasn't the best argument to make. "He's the person who made me realize I wasn't a freak. I wasn't alone. You know how important he is to me, and you say that you like to treat me as more of an adult because of what you know I'm capable of. And if I was an adult, I would at least have a relationship with Walter in the professional sense."

"Maybe you would," Paige said. "But sometimes you can't. Sometimes you realize that even only professionally, things can't work out."

"I would like to try, though."

She sighed, tipping her head forward and spreading her fingers on her forehead, pushing them up through her hair. "Ralph, you're getting to the age where I really can't stop you from certain things. If you want to talk to Walter, you can. But –  _but_ …" She held a finger up in warning. "You absolutely can _not_  share any information on Centipede with him. Your mother is partnered with that company which is the top rival of Team Scorpion and I will not allow you to potentially hurt our chances at jobs. Understood?"

Ralph nodded, relieved that at least she hadn't said no. "Understood," he said.

"And if you see him, not here."

"Okay."

"And don't let him tell you I'm the bad guy in all of this. Drew used to do that all the time."

Ralph remembered. She didn't think he had been old enough to, but he did.  _Walter wouldn't do that._  He'd thought the same thing about his father too, once, but he was older now, he understood things better, he was sure that Walter wasn't Drew.

Walter was so different from Drew that Ralph still couldn't believe it when his mother had come home a few weeks prior, angry and tearful and telling him that it was all over. She'd initially told him the tears were from how angry she was, but she'd admitted, two days later, that "despite how miserable I was, it's still hard to cope when something ends." Then she'd started up the whole thing about how they would be fine because they had each other, a speech that left a horrible taste in Ralph's mouth because  _you were happy. So was I. We were the happiest we'd been in a long time._

His mom's phone buzzed, and because it was face up on the table between them, Ralph caught a glimpse of the message preview. It was from Sylvester and appeared to be part of a group thread.  **Morning, team! I was thinking about…**

Paige took the phone, opened the message, and Ralph watched her eyes shift as she scanned it. She tapped out a reply and put the phone back onto the table, face down this time. She got up, pushing her chair in and taking her dish to the sink.

Ralph snuck a look at how she had replied.

**Sounds good. Also remember – parnters, not team.**

Parnters.  _Parnters._  Normally Ralph wasn't an asshole about typos – he knew they happened and they happened to him sometimes, too and overall it was a ridiculous thing to get annoyed about as long as the intended message was still clear. But this was almost too easy to roll one's eyes at – his mother was so desperate to get them avoiding the use of  _team_ , a perfectly good word, simply because it's what Scorpion used, and she misspelled her correction.

Wasn't the whole thing about the word 'team' that there was no 'I' in it? Wasn't that literally on sports tee shirts all the time?

_This is just an example of how overall ridiculous this whole situation is._

Ralph started to work on his pancake. It wasn't bad – his mother wasn't a  _bad_  cook – but nothing had really tasted right in weeks. Nothing had  _felt_  right in weeks. His energy levels were low, he never wanted to eat, and he knew he was sleeping more often than usual. Paige was right about one thing – it was hard to cope when something ended. And maybe his mom could pretend that everything had sucked and that this was a new beginning, but he couldn't. It felt like an end.

It felt like the kind of end some people didn't recover from.


	3. Chapter 3

"I can't believe how much I'm sweating right now," Florence said, taking a rag out of the glove compartment and wiping her forehead.

Walter gaped at her. "That was used to clean my tail light."

"It's ninety – five degrees in this truck and you made me run all the way up that hill since your repurposed crane wouldn't hold up for the ten minutes that you promised the clients. I have sweat dripping down my face so I don't care if there's dust from the road on this thing."

"Thank God," Cabe said from the back seat. "I was worried tail light was a euphemism for a second there."

"I don't do euphemisms," Walter said. "This team is above such immaturity. It's an attribute that will put us ahead of  _other_  companies."

"Agreed," Florence said. "If we always say exactly what we mean, it will minimize confusion."

"Isn't that right, Cabe?" Walter asked, glancing in the rearview mirror.

"Oh, sure," the older man replied, "never a good thing to have humor in a situation."

"Was that sarcasm?" Florence asked Walter.

"Nooo," Cabe said.

Walter motioned toward Cabe with his head. "He said no."

Florence cocked her head, staring at him in silence for a few seconds, then cleared her throat and faced forward again. "Well, I still say I could have fixed the A/C if we had a little more time."

"Unlikely, but I suppose possible," Walter said, tapping the steering wheel. "But after the unfortunate crane mishap, we are a bit pressed for time."

"That wasn't  _my_  fault," Florence muttered under her breath. Walter didn't hear her.

"At least now we can fit all of Team Scorpion into a regular vehicle," Cabe said after a moment. "Don't gotta worry about a big van."

"Team Scorpion two point oh," Walter said.

"That's what I said."

"No. You gave the old name. That name has an affiliation with our old members. This is Team Scorpion  _two point oh._ "

Florence raised her eyebrows. "Don't you think that's a little, I mean, maybe just a tad pedantic?"

"No."

"Fair enough."

"As you said earlier," Walter said, and Florence groaned and tipped her head back against the head rest, having assumed that was the end of the topic, "if we always say what we mean, it will minimize confusion. Saying Team Scorpion is confusing because it implies…"

"Can we not have this discussion right now, Walt?" Cabe said. "We still need to transport the crap in the back of this car down to the base of the mountain and we need to do it without passing out because there's no damn air conditioning. I'm a little rusty on how to treat heat exhaustion and at the very least these sweltering conditions will put us in moods that aren't ideal when it comes to dealing the base camp guys."

"Team Scorpion two point oh makes the most of all situations," Walter said. "We are driving at the maximum speed to stop the engine from overheating, which would cause a much bigger problem than Florence using a dirty rag to wipe her face, and when we exit the vehicle the air outside will seem cooler than it actually is and help to lower our body temperature. We may be a bit uncomfortable now, but we have less than twenty minutes to get it down there and logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

Florence raised her eyebrows at him. "Star Trek?"

Walter cocked his head. "What?"

* * *

Paige crossed the room, arms folded, reminding herself to not sound annoyed. "Are you about done there, Sylvester?" She asked, putting on a smile and resting a hand on his shoulder.

"Uh… _about_  being the operative word, yes."

 _I told them you could do it in five minutes. It's been ten._  Realistically, Paige knew that ten minutes was still lightning fast at breaking through the security system – Sylvester's role at this particular job – but they needed to be competitive and that meant doing things just as fast as anyone else could. And she knew of two people who could hack into this faster than Sylvester.

Fortunately, one of them was her son, but unfortunately, he was out with Daniel and his mom and she couldn't call their day short for her own ego. "You've got this, partner," she said, lightly smacking Sylvester's shoulder. Turning, she raised her eyebrows at Happy and Toby. "What are you doing?"

"We got an e – mail from an adoption agency," Toby said.

"It's after hours, can't that wait until – "

"Paige," Happy said, narrowing her eyes, "we're not bicycles, so how about you stop riding us like this?"

"Yeah," Toby said. "It's not a dick, don't take it so hard."

"I uh, I think I'd already gotten the point across there, hubs," Happy said in a low voice. She turned back to Paige. "Look, Dineen, we're  _partners_ , right? All equal?  _You're not our boss_?"

"I'm just trying to keep everyone on track," Paige said, folding her arms. "We all have to play to our strengths and weaknesses, yes?"

"Oh yeah," Toby said. "That's why Happy and I are already done with our portion of the job. If Sylvester could get into the system and you could stop making impossible promises to our contractors, we could finish a job on time and all get to go home."

"I'm in!" Sylvester declared, looking up and flashing a grin at the others before going back to typing.

"Great job, Sly!" Paige called before turning back to Happy and Toby. "Okay, so are we all set to meet at headquarters at eleven tomorrow to discuss the coming week?"

"Uh…" the couple glanced at each other. "Can we make it noon?" Toby asked. "We may have agreed to a meeting with this place."

Paige opened her mouth to protest, then shut it.  _All equal. You're not our boss_. "Sure," she said, nodding, "as long as that's fine with Sylvester, too. Sly?"

"Huh?"

"Meeting pushed to noon tomorrow, good?"

"Sure."

"Okay, cool," Paige said. "Don't you love how Centipede Partners can just…make decisions without getting petty and weird?"

"That's us," Toby said, smiling. "We may have these little tiny spats but they get resolved. Because we're open and honest with each other. A little spatting is healthy sometimes."

"I'm in!"

The three looked in confusion over toward the computer. "I thought you were already in?" Happy asked.

"No," Sylvester said. "I just wanted you guys to stop fighting. But I'm really in, now, so these suckers better watch their backs."

"We weren't fighting," Toby said, putting his hands on his hips. "It wasn't a  _fight_. It was a  _spat_. And those are healthy."

"Sometimes," Happy said.

"This time," Paige added.

"Ms. Dineen?"

Paige turned, seeing the same well – dressed gentleman from earlier standing in the doorway. "Yes, Mr. Bentley?"

"I have someone who needs to speak with you about the transfer."

Paige frowned, glancing at the others. Happy looked confused. Toby shrugged. Sylvester was doing a little dance in his chair that she strongly suspected was a celebration over getting into the computer system. Crossing the room, Paige folded her arms again in front of Thomas Bentley. "Transfer?"

"Oh, nothing big. I mean, lots of tedious paperwork and a discussion with our superior, but that's all."

"What is this for, again?"

"Your company isn't affiliated with any government agency, so any non – disclosure or payment forms that were uniform across your last place of employment due to its connection to Homeland Security needs to be taken care of on your end for us to pay you."

"Oh." She supposed that made sense – although she wasn't looking forward to more paperwork. "It's a welcome price to pay for being on our own," she said, smiling at Bentley. "Though I won't bore you with that drama."

Bentley raised his eyebrows. "I appreciate that."

Paige cleared her throat. "Lead the way."

* * *

"Florence, will you wait a moment?"

Florence didn't want to wait a moment. She was tired, she was back to a normal body temperature but her clothes were gross from all the earlier sweating, and Cabe had just walked out – she'd made a point of avoiding any situation where she was alone with Walter. It was too awkward.

But a quick  _no thank you_  coupled with running out of the garage was something the Florence of a few weeks ago might have done. They'd talked now. He knew she wasn't going to try anything with him and she knew – well, she already had known – that he had no interest. It's not like he was asking her to stay so they could bang on his desk.

An unpleasant feeling curled around Florence's stomach.  _Is this revulsion?_

"What's up?" she asked, turning to face him.

"We talked the other day, oh, I suppose it was a week ago now," he said, "about being friends. Cabe and I went out for lunch the other day. I should extend a similar invitation to you."

"You want us to take our lunch break together?" Florence asked.

Walter shrugged. "Only if you like. If we are going to be friends, we really should spend some time together."

Just a couple of months ago, she jumped at any chance to spend time with him. Even after she realized she was developing feelings, even though she knew she could never act on them, she still looked forward to seeing him, because he was fun to spend time with. They had a lot in common. They had similar senses of humor. She'd always known nothing would ever happen between them – that hadn't changed. So why was she digging her heels in?

Maybe because he knew now. Maybe because the awkwardness was on both ends. Maybe. That had to be it. "Uh…" She nodded. "Sure."

Walter smiled. "Great."

He turned back to his computer, and she bolted out the door, feeling sick to her stomach. She made it nearly to the door of her lab before she turned away, curling her arms around her stomach as she vomited in the pot of the ugly plant the previous tenants had left on the stoop and she'd decided to try and keep alive.

The last thing she wanted to do was spend time with Walter O'Brien. But that didn't make any sense.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay in updating – as I've said, I want to make sure I get everything right since this is going to very likely be the only extensive fix it fic that I'll be writing, and there are cases and business shiz in this which I'm never confident writing (fellow writers who struggle with this, know I'm not glad for your pain but I am glad I'm not alone), so I'm taking it slow. As stated, there will be ten chapters in this fic, and it will be updated once or twice a month until completion.

Positive: Dale McNeal seemed very, very open to hiring Team Centipede on a well – paying job that seemed to have minimal risk.

Negative: Paige swore he was about to officially offer it to them four separate times in the past ten minutes and he'd kept circling back to talking about it more, he loved how willing they were to discuss things, blah blah blah blah blah.

She was always the one good at sweet talking, at convincing potential clients to take them on, so if  _Paige Dineen_  was done with the pleasantries and formalities, it was getting really extreme.

If she'd brought the whole team with her, maybe they would have gotten out of there by now. Toby and Happy were both no – nonsense. But potential adoption plans had called, drawing them away from the offices less than a half an hour before Dale called about meeting up. His mention of  _other potential solutions_ had spurred her to agree to meeting with him that day, even though what he was asking was much more in Centipede Partners' wheelhouse than Team Scorpion's. Even if they were a company he was considering, Centipede Partners had the advantage on skillset already. But it couldn't hurt to get a jump on things anyway.

She would have brought Sylvester, but she could tell by his posture at his desk that it was a bad day. She put a hand on his shoulder as she headed out, letting him know where he was going, and he merely nodded.

The poor kid. Getting his heart broken twice.

"I know my team would be a wonderful fit for this," she said again, for at least the tenth time.

"I think so, too," Dale said. "I think I may need some more time to think, but I would love to you're your ideas on some of the specifics. Would you like to discuss it over dinner, perhaps? I can pick you up."

Paige hesitated. His offer was to share a meal while they discussed a business plan. People had platonic business dinners all the time. This wasn't a date. She didn't want it to be a date. She just got out of a serious relationship. And he knew this, because he had met with Scorpion for this job. He knew the two teams used to be one, and it wasn't like she and Walter had ever hid the fact that they were dating.

"We could go to this diner I know," she said. "It's called Kovelsky's, and it's not far from here. Very good food. I go there all the time and I haven't in a few weeks."

"Sure." He nodded. "I'll pick you up tonight at say, six?"

"On one condition," Paige said. "You come to my place so I don't have to go home alone at night,  _but_  we take public transportation."

Dale cocked his head. "S – sure."

"It's better for the environment. And as you know, Mr. Dodd is working on several projects related to sustainability, at least one of which may benefit what your company is working on.

"That is an excellent point, Ms. Dineen."

"Great. It's a…it's a plan."

* * *

Walter held the door as they left the garage, and Florence scooted through it, turned sideways to make sure she didn't even lightly brush against him. She remembered a case earlier in the year, when they were in the bunker, and Walter didn't even want to stand next to her. That was after they'd become friends but before she'd developed feelings for him, and she'd been terribly confused as to why he didn't seem to want anything to do with her. He'd started walking on eggshells with her since the night of the schism, but now she felt just as uncomfortable around him as she bet he'd felt about her back in the bunker.

It didn't make any sense. These weren't the kind of nerves she would have expected. She wasn't hoping he would say he'd changed his mind and wanted to see if something would work between them. She wasn't hoping he would hold her hand or kiss her or. She was hoping he would tell her he'd invented the neuralyzer from Men In Black and they could erase all memory of the past couple months and then they could go back to being friends without the awkwardness of feelings she had had for him that…

Had had.

The feelings of discomfort she'd had the previous night had been trying to tell her something. Her feelings for him were gone.

"That great pasta food truck should be down on the corner," Walter said, and Florence realized that he'd been saying things before that that she didn't register. He thankfully hadn't seemed to realize that she'd totally tuned out. "Remember that time that S…"

He trailed off, looking away and shoving his hands in his pockets. It didn't matter that he hadn't finished his sentence; she knew he had been going to say  _remember that time that Sylvester showed up with a big pot of the stuff and a team – wide debate over whether or not done pasta actually sticks to the wall led to what was essentially a food fight?_  It had been a total waste of pasta, but Florence couldn't remember the last time that she'd laughed that hard.

Things were so much better before.

They walked in relative silence to the pasta truck, Florence staring at her feet more than at anything else. She should appreciate that Walter was trying. She  _wanted_  to be his friend. He wanted to be hers. He wanted to get past the awkwardness, and she was feeling  _more_  awkward than usual. She had Walter order first, to give her more time to study the menu, and she ultimately ordered the most bland thing they had because the last time she was feeling like this in relation to Walter she threw up in her plant and she most definitely did not want to lose her lunch in public.

She had to figure out why she was feeling this way. Why had she developed these feelings, and why had they gone away so quickly? She felt sick to her stomach again as she considered the possibility that Happy was right. Maybe she was nothing but a homewrecker.

_But I didn't do it on purpose._

"Florence?"

She looked up. Walter was holding out his bowl of pasta, no, he was holding out hers. His bowl was precariously tucked between his elbow and hip. She reached out, taking hers and allowing him a safer hold on his own. "Sorry. My head is a million miles away."

"Are you…is this too uncomfortable?" He looked genuinely concerned. "I made another mistake, didn't I?" He looked away.

Another mistake. Florence didn't feel up to making Walter feel better about himself, but he just looked  _so sad._  It was clear he thought that whatever friendship they had developed was gone, and she wasn't even sure he was wrong.

She'd been the one who had suggested they try to keep their professional and platonic relationship intact. She'd been the one to point out they'd already lost so much, they didn't need to lose each other, too. And now she was the one making it worse – both their friendship and Walter's self esteem. She was sure he was thinking about Paige's comment, the one about him being only a high schooler without potential to ever improve again.

She'd thought about that one a lot, too. Because she was a lot like Walter. And if no one could love him despite his social awkwardness, how the Hell would anyone ever be able to feel that way about her?

Maybe what would salvage their friendship was neither of them would ever find anyone else who would care to stay. Which, she thought ruefully, was exactly what Team Scorpion (2.0) was. The perpetual fuck up and the two people who didn't walk out on him.

How pathetic was that?

"We shouldn't be out here," she said, looking around. "Paige comes around here."

"Paige isn't my girlfriend anymore," Walter said. "It doesn't matter if she approves of who I'm friends with."

"Walter," Florence said, "you know if she sees us out like this that will destroy any chance of the two of you getting back together."

Walter sighed. "I don't know that that's even a possibility anyway."

"Right. Because that's why you wanted to talk to her at Gettleman's office."

"That was a moment of weakness."

"Because you love her and you want to make it better. That's not weakness. That's not letting your pride get the better of you."

"I don't want to talk about Paige."

"Fine. But I'm going back to the garage. I'm already the reason you guys broke up, I'm not going to be what seals the deal on this being permanent."

"You weren't the reason we broke up. You heard her. She dumped me because I'm a selfish child who doesn't have the capability to love her the way she deserves. Us going to the lecture together was just the straw that broke the horse's back."

"No, she was angry about that and then used every little thing that she could think of to justify breaking up with you because she has abandonment issues from Ralph's father. What?" She asked when he looked at her in surprise. "I listen when Toby talks, and he never stops talking."

"Toby is on Centipede."

"I don't mean now. I mean the months I was around you all before all this went to  _ca – ca._  I don't have to be perceptive to understand that that's Toby's whole thing and so listening to him can help me understand. Also, I think the phrase is straw that broke the  _camel's_  back, but I'm aware that's not the takeaway here." She paused for breath. "My point is, I feel awful for coming between you and Paige and if she sees us out together that'll just further convince her that something is going on and I refuse to be the reason that door is shut forever." She raised her eyebrows at him. "You don't want to stay apart from her, right?"

Walter sighed. "Flo…"

She didn't even care about the damn nickname. " _Right_?"

Another sigh. "I suppose. Yes."

"If you want her back, we can't hang out. If you get her back, then you can open up a line of communication with her and say you would like to have a friendship with me but nothing is ever going to happen. Until then…this isn't going to work."

"She already knows I have…uh…"

_You can say you have no interest in me._

"She already knows I want to be with her and only her. It didn't matter. It's not going to make any difference now."

Florence sighed. "Okay. Whatever. But this still isn't working. I don't think we can be friends, Walter. Colleagues will have to do."

He dropped his pasta bowl in a garbage bin. She wasn't even sure if he ate any of it. "I'm sorry. This was a mistake."

 _No it wasn't. Not for the reason you think, at least._  Based on her confession in April, she didn't blame him for thinking she was standing here angsting over him, and she honestly would prefer that to the way she felt right now.

She liked him just long enough to destroy the relationship he was supposed to be in, to ruin his friendship with Sylvester, and almost not a moment longer.

Sylvester.

The look on his face. Her heart hadn't hurt like that in…Florence shook her head. Both her hardest fit of laughter and her worst moment of emotional pain in her entire memory was with that team. That family that was gone now. And  _Walter's_  relationship with Sylvester wasn't the only one she'd ruined. Oh, how she'd always looked forward to their collaboration sessions.

It wasn't Sylvester's fault he caught feelings for her any more than it was her fault for briefly liking Walter, likewise it wasn't Walter's fault she'd had feelings and it wasn't her fault Sylvester did, but Florence still felt guilty, responsible for all of it.

Her lease was up soon. She'd been planning to renew it.

Maybe that would just be another mistake. Maybe the only way this could get better was if she wasn't around anymore.

What scared her the most as she hurried home, leaving Walter behind and terrified that she might still vomit up the few bits of food she'd managed to get down, was the idea that she cared enough about all of them to leave the only people who had ever cared about her, if it meant they could heal themselves.

* * *

It took Paige approximately twenty – three minutes to realize this wasn't just a business dinner.

Dale spoke minimally about the case, hashing out a few details, agreeing to hire Centipede almost immediately after they sat down, and then began asking some not so subtle questions about her and her life and what she wanted in a partner – although he probably thought he was hiding his intentions by using the name Centipede Partners as a tie in to that question.

She was mildly uncomfortable as their food arrived, and she repeatedly filled the silences when he paused for breath or when she finished answering a question and he hadn't come up with another yet with comments about her entrée, the seasoning, the different ways she'd tried it before, and a pun about the loud ice machine in the back that more often than not dumped a mountain of the cubes on the floor all over the wait staff's feet. He'd laughed at it, a laugh that was different from anything she'd heard before, but one she thought she could like. Maybe Dale was some _one_  she could like. He had mentioned getting out of a two year relationship in February – that would have been just two months before Paige and Walter broke up – and so he would likely understand her wanting to take her time when entering something new.

They'd been at the restaurant nearly an hour when he set his fork down and sighed. "Look," he said, "I'm just going to cut to the chase."

"O…kay."

He shrugged. "I like you. You're smoking hot, you tell great stories, you're a mom, you're driven…" he touched the tips of his fingers together. "There's so much about you that I find incredibly attractive But…"

Paige felt some mixture of confusion at his  _but_. She just got out of a serious relationship, she didn't want to date, and yet she still felt something like a sting at his use of  _but_. "But what?"

"But you don't like me."

"No, of course I…you're…"

He held up a hand. "You suggested we come somewhere really well known to you. You've been glancing around all evening. It doesn't take a genius to know you're hoping one walks in."

"W – what do you mean?"

"I mean, the most efficient way for us to get to this restaurant would have been for both of us to take public transport and meet here. The best way to be environmentally friendly would be to go to one that doesn't have an ice machine that ends up with water waste. But we're here, and my car is at your place. Because you want Mr. O'Brien to know you're out with another man. And this way, whether he wanders in here out of habit or if he drives by your condo and glances over, he will know."

"Walter and I are no longer together.  _I_  ended it."

"I know that. But there's a reason you want to make him jealous, and that reason doesn't leave any room for me in a situation that's fair to everyone involved." He leaned back. "I do want your team to do my company's job." He must have noticed the suspicious look on Paige's face, because he added "I'm not gonna attach any physical conditions to that; I'm a decent guy. I want Centipede to have the job, no strings attached."

 _No, Mr. Decent Guy, not pressuring someone into sex should be expected, not applauded._  Paige opted for a slightly more professional reply. "Well, that's good."

"Guess I'll have to get my dates from outside the recently broken up professional pool."

"Yeah," she said, folding her arms. "Yeah, it is." She stood up. "I don't think Scorpion is a good fit for this position." At his raised eyebrows, she felt her face flush. "Centipede. Centipede politely declines the job offer."

"I understand. And I apologize."

"Accepted. But I'm sorry. You've made me uncomfortable."

"I'm sorry." She didn't doubt his apology, but she recognized aspects of his expression. Toby had those same tics when he knew he had hit a nerve.

Paige swiped her card on the screen on the table, paying for her half of the bill, then grabbed her purse, heading out to the parking lot before she remembered that her car wasn't there.

The parking lot. The damn  _parking lot_  held too many memories.

Dale had been right. She had been hoping Walter would see them together, but to what end? Just to be petty? Paige knew she could be that, but there was no value in flaunting a relationship – or what seemed like one – in front of someone that she planned to remove from her life. And the last time she'd seen Walter, he hadn't seemed any more ambivalent than anyone else.

Too busy going to lectures with Florence Tipton for cranial stimulation, probably.

She felt the bus go by and realized she would now have to wait for the next one – and most certainly have to see Dale again – or call an Uber. She chose the latter. Thankfully it was right around the corner, and within ninety seconds she was sitting behind the passenger seat, heading toward home while the driver made a few seconds of small talk before falling into silence, the only sound the muffled traffic outside and the country radio coming through the speakers.

_Everywhere we go you keep looking around, fixing your makeup like it's about to go down._

_And he walks in; it all makes sense._

_Suddenly you're climbing all up next to me, next to me._

_I ain't no fool, you rascal, you; you don't want me – you just want your ex to see._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors love kudos and comments. ;)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey friends.
> 
> This was supposed to be up a while ago, but this chapter was also supposed to be quite different. The ultimate outcomes the same, but one of the cases – a 3500 word scene – was going to feature a tragedy in a cave. I had it outlined since before the show was even cancelled and basically had it all written the day the news came from Thailand. Despite that being a happy ending, I had already decided that given the similarities and the ultimate outcome in the fic and that given the timing, it would not be appropriate to proceed with. Case fic is difficult enough, and completely re-writing a pretty significant chapter in this fic took me some time. But I appreciate y'all's patience and I hope you enjoyed the frequent updates to Conflict that were partly the result of me not having any idea how to re – do this chapter and just wanting to write something.
> 
> Here's the next installment. Warning though, it's dark.

In May of 2014, shortly before leaving Nemos' diner, another waitress had invited Paige to accompany her and her sister – in – law to a movie on the rare occasion they both had a day off. It was a day that Ralph was in school – another rare occasion – so she'd agreed. Paige had been so exhausted from working sixteen hour shifts that she'd dozed off and on, but now, over four years later, it was flashbacks to that movie that were rushing across her brain as Garret Miller, the man they had been hired to save, revealed he had actually run off to  _join_  the Forsaken Riders and bolted for a gun that his 'captors' had left behind.

Well, the whole movie wasn't flashing before her eyes. Just the part where a man was suddenly crushed by a giant block of ice and Seth MacFarlane shouted  _that went south so fast!_

Centipede Partners had a gun, too – their client's – but when the other members of the gang had left the house, the client had gotten out of the car without it, saying he wasn't the best shot anyway and he wanted Garrett to know they weren't going to hurt him. Plus, he had reasoned, there were kids around.

"Get down!" Someone was yelling. The voice was Sylvester's but it took Paige a moment to identify it because she was lunging toward the children who were playing in the street outside the small house in Arizona where they had believed that Miller was being held against his will. Her own survival instincts were suppressed by her need to protect children. That might be her undoing. But there were worse reasons to die. Behind her, she heard Happy yelling, shouting to Burt Miller, the brother and their client, to get behind a tree. Her peripheral vision saw Toby darting behind a truck, but all of it registered with her on a delay, because for the three seconds it took to reach them Paige's entire world had shrunk to two elementary school boys playing hacky sack.

She slammed into them, wrapping her arms around their bodies and twisting as they fell, taking the brunt of the impact on her shoulder. They were behind bushes now. If they stayed down and if Miller hadn't been watching them, they were probably safe. "Stay down, stay down," she hissed as the older child struggled.

Gunfire rang out, fast and furious, and the children stopped fighting her when they realized something was actually very wrong. The younger one buried his head into Paige's chest, starting to cry, clinging to a woman he had never met as bullets sailed around them. Paige squeezed her eyes shut. Her teeth were clenched, causing her breathing to make a hissing sound, and she forced her lips closed, drawing air through her nose in the fear the rogue Miller might hear her otherwise.

The gunfire ceased – or Paige thought it did, and she had lifted her head to investigate when another shot pierced the air, making her drop back down as flat as she could behind the bushes. Then there was shouting. She heard her name. This time it was Toby.

She hesitated in getting up, looking at the boys. "Are you guys okay? Anybody hurt?"

"Mama, mama," the younger one said, tears running down his face.

The older boy put his arm around his shoulders. "It's okay, Connor. It's okay."

"I want mama," he said, hugging himself.

"Where is home?" Paige asked. "Can I take you both anywhere?"

The older boy shook his head. "It's just around the corner." He pointed.

The opposite direction from the commotion. "Go," Paige said, looking back in the direction of the Forsaken Rider house. Her face paled as she saw multiple forms on the ground. "Go," she said again, gently pushing them toward where the older boy had pointed. "Run. Run right home and tell your family to stay inside."

"Thanks, lady." The older boy put his hands on Connor's shoulders and pushed him forward. Paige watched them bolt, then turned and ran toward the scene.

The closest people were Toby and Happy and Burt –  _Burt_. He lay on the uneven ground, his ankle twice the normal size, blood coming from the middle of his stomach, more blood pooling under his neck.

Toby, a genius even with limited supplies, was working on him. Happy stood behind. "Just control your breathing, Burt," he said, his voice seeming calm to anyone who didn't know it. "I'm giving your something for the pain. Don't panic, just focus on breathing."

"What can I do?" Paige asked, dropping to her knees next to Toby.

She was fully expecting him to give her instructions, tell her to hold something or watch for this or that. The remaining blood drained from her face when he turned to her and gave a small shake of his head.

 _No_ , she mouthed.

This didn't happen. They saved everybody.

"Oh…oh my god," Happy said, turning to her left and walking off. Paige didn't watch her go. She was too busy staring at Toby, trying to process what he had indicated.

"Just relax, Burt," Toby continued. The man's eyes were open, his breathing labored. "Just focus on my voice."

Toby was working. Toby wasn't just sitting there. Toby wasn't supposed to fail when he worked on a patient. Maybe Paige had misinterpreted his head shake – or maybe even just imagined it. That had to be it. Toby  _couldn't_  have told her that Burt wasn't going to survive.

Except that the behaviorist, the brilliant doctor, the genius wasn't doing anything to fix the wounds. He was only doing things that would manage Burt's pain.

No.

They always saved everybody.

Paige reached for Burt's hand, closing her fingers around it and squeezing. This shouldn't be happening, this shouldn't have happened…

This wouldn't have happened if they had had someone on hand, someone armed, someone who knew their way around a weapon who could have protected them and taken Garrett out before he had the chance to fire.

Paige had been confident that they wouldn't need Cabe to arrange jobs. None of them had thought about the other reasons Cabe was invaluable.

They saved everybody. Paige had spent the last four years proud of that.  _They saved everybody_.

Well, when that was still true,  _they_  was a bit different.

"He can't feel that," Toby said in a low voice, gesturing with his head to Paige and Burt's hands. "One of the bullets paralyzed his left side." He looked up to glance in the direction that Happy had gone in. "Sylvester."

"Syl…" Paige's eyes widened slightly. "What…"

Toby bit his lip, turning back to the dying man on the ground. "It's okay to close your eyes, Burt," he said gently.

Paige jumped to her feet, looking for Happy, looking for Sylvester. She spotted them, and she started to run, to cover the distance between them, her eyes wet with tears and her brain going in too many directions to process what was happening until she was just a few feet away. She came to a halt, staring in shock.

The other body laying on the ground was Garrett Miller. He was dead from a single gunshot wound to the chest, his gun in the dirt next to him. The blood had soaked into the patch on his shirt – the gray Forsaken Riders logo.

Was it really just fourteen hours earlier that Paige had thought that the family was making up the case, trolling them with the name  _Foreskin Riders_ , until Happy pointed out she had read it wrong. Toby had made some joke asking about if that had been Paige's name in her last relationship. She'd been annoyed.

Paige swore she'd lived one thousand years since then, since Burt and Kendra Miller had begged them to find Garrett and bring him back. Now Burt lay dying fifty yards away, and Garrett somehow lay dead just feet in front of her.

Paige's question of  _how_  was answered when she turned to her team mates. The gun was still in Sylvester's hands.

His shaking hands. The mathematician was slightly hunched over, his fingers locked around the gun so tightly his knuckles were white, his mouth hanging slightly open. "I…" he stammered, his voice sounding so unlike himself Paige wasn't sure she would have recognized it even on a delay, "I…I killed somebody. I killed somebody. I killed somebody."

Happy reached out, touching his shoulder, lightly drumming her fingers as she moved her hand down his arm and carefully pried the gun out of his hands. She deftly removed the clip and tossed the gun aside without taking her eyes off of her friend.

"I killed somebody." He hadn't moved. His eyes were wide as he stared at the body. "I…I killed somebody."

"Sylvester," Paige said, and Happy jumped, as if she hadn't noticed that she was there. "Sylvester, look at me."

"I killed somebody." His eyes lifted to Paige. "Paige. Paige, I…"

"You saved us," she said, taking both his hands. "You saved us, Sly. You know he wouldn't have stopped. He would have made sure there were none of us left."

"I grabbed the gun out of the truck. I…I thought he might go for it for more ammunition. I wanted to hide, I tried to hide, he came at us…" Sylvester's breathing was shallow, rapid. "I shot him. I killed him. I'm a killer."

"You're not a killer, Sly," Paige said.

"Oh my God." Tears welled up in Sylvester's eyes. "I killed somebody. Paige, I killed...I..."

Happy pulled him into her arms. When Toby joined them, less than a minute later, his hat in his hand, he surveyed the scene. Sighing and dropping his head, he went to Paige and held her close.

* * *

"Hi, there you're Toby?"

"Unfortunately," he said, giving the driver a half – hearted smile.

"Well, hop on in," she said, smiling brightly. "We've got plenty of room. My name is Dawn."

Kendra Miller had given them a ride from their headquarters to the airport. She wasn't an option to take them back. She had to wait to receive her husband's body. So they relied on Uber. And unfortunately, their driver seemed to be the type to want to talk.

"Where did you come in from?" Dawn asked.

"Flagstaff," Paige said. An appropriate location for the  _Foreskin Riders_ , Toby had also joked earlier.

"Nice. I've been there."

"It's been a long day," Paige said.

Whether it was Paige's words, her tone, or the common tension between everyone, Dawn seemed to get the hint, dropping the small talk – although she clearly hadn't quite understood that they didn't want to talk in general. "It really has. I was driving a person earlier, we were going more out into a rural area, in the desert, and it was supposed to be a straight shot but we ended up having to go in a wide loop around the town. I guess there was an explosion, a fire. A ton of disturbing stuff, actually."

"Oh no," Toby said. He glanced in the back seat. Sylvester sat in the middle, with Happy and Paige on either side, holding his hands. He hadn't spoken a word since they had gotten on the plane over eight hours ago. "That sounds intense."

"Yeah. I hear someone died. A kid. Well, twenty years old. But I'm forty – two, so that's a kid to me. It's a damn shame. They were supposed to be the best people in the country working on the job.

Paige felt a sudden twinge of both suspicion and dread. "The best people in the country?" She glanced around Sylvester at Happy. She could see it on the mechanic's face that she was thinking the same thing.

"Yeah. It's this team called Scorpion, you know, like the Drake album? They were out there trying to…whatever, stop what happened from happening, I guess. I was listening to the news story earlier, it was live coverage."

Paige thought she was going to be sick.

Dawn looked in the rearview mirror, then over at Toby in the passenger seat. She seemed to take the quiet as a sign no one wanted to talk.

They rode the rest of the way back to the office in the loudest silence Paige had ever experienced.

* * *

" _The alarm was sounded shortly after one in the afternoon, when calls were made to anyone who had the resources to help. Several companies and individuals lent their services, including..."_

Happy hadn't wanted to read the article or to watch the news story embedded within it. It had been a foster home that was targeted, by a former lover of one of the operators convinced that he was owed a substantial amount of money, and angry that someone had dared choose children over him. In a plan that would leave at least three – quarters of the unsubs from Criminal Minds taking notes, he had rigged the house with endless traps, effectively trapping ten people inside, ranging from a four – month – old boy to fifty – two – year – old Aimee Tracker, who was currently fighting for her life in the largest trauma center in Los Angeles. Her son, Lane Tracker, was the casualty.

Team Scorpion had arrived shortly after the call for help went out, and according to the article they were responsible for most of the survivors making it out. There was video of Cabe running from the house with the infant, as well as a photo Walter hoisting Florence up so the chemist could shimmy through a high window. According to the text below the picture, Florence had had a bottle strapped to her that had neutralized a toxic solution that was going to be used to destroy the baby while he was still living.

They had brought Lane Tracker out, still conscious, yelling that a nine – year – old girl was still inside. A nursing student who had been driving nearby had tried to help, but she lacked the experience and equipment needed for an emergency situation and he had died in her arms less than ten minutes after being removed from the house. The death wasn't the student's fault. The article made that very clear. Whether or not she would ever recover mentally from the experience was another story entirely, and it wasn't one this publication seemed to care to cover. Happy wondered if she had the same support system that Centipede was currently providing to Sylvester.

Aimee, suffering from injuries sustained by being clubbed on the head and then tied to a makeshift rack that her ex -lover had brought to the house in his truck, hadn't yet been told her son was dead. She was too badly hurt to handle it.

Considering there was only one listed fatality, it seemed that the girl that the younger Tracker had told them about had also been rescued before the fire.

The video at the bottom of the post was the hardest to watch, but it automatically started playing when she scrolled down far enough, and Happy found herself numb, unable to stop it or to look away.

A reporter stood with the house in the background, now engulfed in flames, fire trucks surrounding it. She was recapping the events of the day, talking about the plans to try and salvage some of the house to be used as evidence. She was quoting someone, a police officer, Happy thought. But she wasn't paying attention to that.

She could hear screaming, aggravated, painful screaming, from someone off camera, and she knew it was Walter. She'd seen him frustrated, she knew how he got when he didn't know how to fix something, and once you heard him like that, you never forgot what it sounded like. Behind the reporter, someone – Cabe – darted across the screen. Seconds later, the screaming quieted, and then it stopped.

As angry as she was, as resentful, as petty as she admitted to being, Happy felt relieved that Cabe was there for Walter. She was even more relieved that the person who was comforting her former boss wasn't…

_Her._

The camera angle changed, the words  _5 minutes ago_ now blinking in the corner, showing a small woman that could only have been the little interloper. She was sitting against a tree, maybe one hundred yards from the house, her knees up to her chest with her arms – scraped and bleeding – wrapped around them. Her head was resting on them, her face not visible, but anyone could tell by the way her body was shaking that she was crying hard.

Happy hated Florence Tipton. But she couldn't hate anyone who looked like that.


	6. Chapter 6

Three days was  _the_  number. It was the number of days after which the Christian messiah rose from the dead. It was the number of days the mermaid had to be human. It was how long that poor fellow had to get money together in the Disney version of  _Oliver Twist_. Three days always seemed to pass so fast when reading or watching. Three days was an agonizingly long period in real time.

But unlike those examples that had a definite end, a definite outcome after three days' time, this was just the third day of an undetermined amount where crying and excessive sleeping were the only things being accomplished. That made the days stretch even longer. Agonizingly longer.

"You okay, kid?"

Florence raised her head slowly, knowing her eyes were bloodshot by how much they hurt. Cabe pressed his lips into a thin line. "Yeah. Bad question. May I sit?"

He gestured to the chair adjacent to her. She nodded. "Where's Walter?" He asked as he sat down with a quiet grunt that would have reminded Florence of how old he was if he didn't look like he had aged years since the fire.

"He went out. Didn't say where."

"Have  _you_  been out at all?" He asked.

"No," she said. "I haven't even been back to my place." At Cabe's look of surprise, she shook her head. "It's not like that. I've been sleeping in the air stream."

"I'm not judging," he replied, sounding as if he would and preferred just not to know.

"No," Florence said. "Honestly. Nothing. Not from either of us."

"Really."

Now he sounded as if he thought he was being played. Florence closed her eyes. Another person that didn't believe her. "How did I ever get myself into this mess?" All she had wanted was friends, a family, to be valued and liked, and then she'd caught feelings for someone in a relationship, confessed to them during his breakup only to find out that his brother was in love with her, only to have them fade the minute he was available, which was fine because he never liked her like that in the first place anyway.

Actually, no, the first part of that was wrong.

All she had  _initially_  wanted was some god damned peace and quiet.

"This mess is a mess much larger than your part in it," Cabe said. "I mean it," he added when she scoffed. "Paige and Walter have always had periodic breakdowns in communication. Sylvester has become less afraid since he met his wife but more afraid at the same time. And him and Walter, well, they've always had little things going on. Every one of us, really. We were strong together, but there were tiny cracks there that were just waiting to blow up, like when something hits your windshield and you don't even notice but then suddenly the tiniest of pebbles hitting the weak point in just the right – or wrong – way sends a streak across your vision." He took a sip of his coffee. "I think we all knew, on some level. We all wanted to pretend that none of that existed. Probably just like Walter and Paige both didn't want to acknowledge that they had things to work on. Doesn't mean they were bad. Doesn't mean Scorpion was bad. Just means we all took each other for granted a little bit."

"Sometimes you can patch a windshield. Sometimes it just isn't any good anymore." Florence folded her hands and pressed them between her knees. "How do you know?"

There was a silence. I only know how to answer that question in the non – metaphorical sense," Cabe said.

Florence nodded. "Same here." She put her head in her hands, composing herself a moment before looking back at Cabe. She knew his entire point was that this wasn't her fault.

But she still felt like a tiny pebble. She was even the right size.

* * *

Sylvester was doing…better. Better didn't equal good, but he was talking again, saying things other than repeating his horror at using the gun on Garrett Miller. His greatest improvement seemed to come from having a long talk with Toby in the psychiatrist's office. Sometimes, Paige knew, having someone who was your friend, who knew you so intimately, could actually hinder a therapy session due to potential subjectivity. This was not one of those times. They all knew how to comfort Sylvester, and Toby's education just primed him to nurture the younger man back to a point where he could function.

Paige knew the hugs he got from her helped, as did Happy moving some of his things from his office to his apartment, so he could sleep surrounded by distractions. She moved them back to his office during the day, so being at work didn't feel cold and impersonal.

Happy Quinn was going to be a good mother someday. Someday  _soon_. Paige had faith in that, even though it seemed as if adoption had taken a place on the back burner while they all cared for Sylvester.

Paige's train of thought jumped to how between being an equal partner in a startup company and being there for her friend while he dealt with guilt and post traumatic stress, she was actually seeing her son less than when she worked for Scorpion. Happy and Toby could put off adoption until they felt their day to day life was conducive to a child again, but once one  _was_  a parent, that had to be a full – time commitment. And Paige knew she had been lacking in that. Of course, Ralph was at Daniel's tonight, and as much as she suddenly missed him – an odd thing to think when she saw him every day – she couldn't go pick him up, confusing Ralph and upsetting his friend.

She got up, checking the other rooms in the office. Sylvester was gone, and since his action figures and stack of comic books were gone too, so was Happy. If Happy was gone, Toby was gone. She was the only one left in the office.

She couldn't go home and hug her son, but she could at least leave and go be alone somewhere else. Grabbing her purse and keys, she locked the office and walked to her car with an authoritative swing in her step.

Self – care. She needed self – care. She needed to feel some level of peace, even if only temporarily.

It was only a fifteen – minute drive to the beach from the offices, and she didn't have her swimsuit with her, but she didn't need to go into the water. She just needed to sit in the sand, digging her toes into it, and listen to the lapping of the water on the shore. Maybe some birds would be around, too. Maybe not. Either way, there was something about the ocean that always relaxed her despite their half – dozen near death experiences in water, and despite her swearing upon being rescued from the island that she would never go the beach again.

She didn't notice the other car in the parking lot until she was already heading down to the sand, and just as she saw it, just as she thought it looked familiar, she noticed the man sitting about twenty feet above the high tide line. He turned, and when their eyes met, they just stared for a moment.

A long, long moment, neither of them at all sure what to say. He was the one who spoke first. "Oh."

"Yeah. Hi." Paige had come here looking for solitude, not Walter. But it wasn't as if she didn't know he came here too. This was, after all, where they had had the send – off for his sister.

Megan.

Paige was too tired, too sad to be angry at the moment, but she still hated how Sylvester's wife had been dragged into the blowup in the garage. She hated a lot of what had happened in those few minutes.

_I remember that night. I just might regret that night for the rest of my days._

Paige shook her head slightly in an attempt to get the song out of it. Walter was still looking at her, appearing confused. She cleared her throat. "I, uh…I'm sorry about…"

Walter's face was expressionless. "You heard about that."

 _Everyone has heard about that. The videos are trending._  The videos. His scream. The way he was short and to the point, even more so, in the interview he had done later on. Everyone had watched. What most people didn't know was just how much pain he shouldered, how after Baghdad he swore he would never have anything to do with the death of another person, and how much his successes at saving nine people was overshadowed by the loss of the tenth.

Of course, she hadn't spoken to Walter in weeks. He hadn't told her any of this. But she  _knew_. "I think it was very impressive, getting Chenoa out of there." Chenoa, the nine – year – old that Lane Tracker had used his dying breaths to ensure someone went after.

Walter didn't answer, just turned his head back toward the water. He didn't know what to say. That was something Paige certainly understood.

 _I should go._  She didn't know if she had the strength to be around Walter right now while she was dealing with everything else. But after four years of being what she was to Scorpion, it was hard for her to walk away when he was so obviously struggling. Paige bit her lip. "Can I sit?"

There was a long silence, and she wasn't even sure if he had heard her. Just as she was about to ask again, he nodded. "Yeah. If you'd like."

Paige closed the distance between them and lowered herself onto the sand, leaving a space that she thought was appropriate. "Are you taking care of yourself?"

He gave a short laugh. "I haven't driven off of any cliffs, if that's what you mean."

Well, obviously.  _Are you eating? Are you sleeping? Are you working yourself into that state where your brain refuses to turn off and you end up with a migraine_? That had been worse after his cliff accident. He showed no ill effects in his day to day life, but when he was tired and kept working, he sometimes got stuck. He struggled a lot when that happened. She remembered back in January, when he was still healing from his Christmas Eve accident, he had gone four days without sleeping, and his head hurt so badly any light was too much. She had almost always been the little spoon in their relationship. Those days were the exception. She remembered holding him tight as he groaned in pain. "Please just tell me you're not surviving off of the vending machine."

"Cabe…Allie brought us dinner yesterday."

Well, one good meal was better than  _entirely_  vending machine. Paige nodded. "That's good."

"We saw the story about your team," he said. "In Arizona."

That surprised her, just a little bit. There was only one article about that and it had mostly gotten lost in the mass of coverage about his team's job. The article that did exist hadn't even been properly researched – neither the author nor the editor seemed to have realized that Centipede Partners was entirely made up of former members of the team at the foster home fire. But then again, she Googled  _Team Scorpion 2.0_  – leaving off the last part brought up stories she had taken part in – on a near daily basis. It made sense that Walter's team did similar checks on their main competitors.

"Yeah. That was rough." She couldn't stop thinking about how Burt Miller would still be alive if Cabe had been there.

"I'm sorry."

She sighed. "Thanks." He didn't know about Sylvester. That hadn't been in the article.

"Paige?"

"Hmmm?"

"I don't like being wrong."

That was the understatement of the century.

"I like admitting that I'm wrong even less."

No,  _that_  was the understatement of the century. Paige's legs had been crossed, and she stretched them out in front of her. "Okay."

"When…" she saw his chest move as he took in a breath. "When you all left, I had no idea what was going to happen to us. But I never…I never thought we would lose somebody. But when Ella – that was her name, Ella – was working on Lane Tracker, all I could think was that my heart was racing, and I wouldn't have been afraid for him if Toby had been there."

Paige drew her knees up. "Burt Miller wouldn't have died if we had had Cabe. I said that we didn't need him. That we didn't need any of you. But…"

She trailed off. Walter was looking at her. There was nothing particular about the  _way_  he was looking at her, he was simply being polite, turning toward her as she spoke. But it was Walter, and any way he looked at her had an effect that no one else did. She pressed her lips together, feeling a twinge of frustration. He was right here, next to her, looking at her, and all she wanted to do was move into his arms and let him comfort her while she comforted him right back, without the formalities. Maybe even without words. She loved words, but she felt touch starved tonight; she wanted physical comfort. She wanted it like sometimes she wanted ice cream or sometimes she wanted a sappy movie or sometimes she wanted chocolate covered donuts or French fries dipped in a milk shake. But she wanted it from Walter, and prepositioning him wouldn't be appropriate. They were exes. And she'd been the one to end it.

Paige stared out at the water, blankly, not really seeing or processing anything. At least, not until she felt him touch her. It was just a hand on her shoulder, but it felt wrong to say  _just_. It was the only thing that didn't make everything feel wrong.

She looked at him. He was giving her a hesitant smile. "I believe it was you who told me that it's okay to not be okay. Sometimes."

"I did tell you that, didn't I?" Paige gave a thin smile. "It is a bit harder to accept than it is to say."

He nodded, then cocked his head. "Do you want to, maybe…"

"I mean, yeah, I do," she said. "But we would have to set boundaries and understand it could be awkward. Sex can bring up – "

"Sex?"

Paige heard the surprise and confusion in his voice and saw his hand resting on the sand between them and was horrified when she realized he had just been suggesting they sit there and hold hands.

 _That_  was awkward.

Paige put her head in her hands. "Wow, that is quite possibly the most socially awkward thing either of us have ever done, and that's saying something." Walter was quiet, biting his lower lip.  _Shit._  "I'm sorry. I was just thinking about…you know what, never mind, it's too weird to explain." She got to her feet, brushing sand off of her pants.

"Paige," he said, scrambling up himself. "Wait. You've always been good at explaining things to me."

Paige shrugged. He was standing a respectful distance away, but not an inch further. She was flustered. "I…ice cream. Some people when they're sad, they want ice cream. Sometimes people want to…to seek that comfort from another person. And you usually want to do that with someone familiar, so you're safe. I wasn't suggesting…I just…I misinterpreted where you were going with what you were saying." She cleared her throat. "I'm rambling. I'm sorry." God. Was this how anxious and lost he felt whenever  _he_  made a mistake?

"It, uh, it makes sense." Walter nodded. "And if both people are…needing to benefit from an arrangement like that…that would make it very efficient."

Paige blinked. She'd already misread him tonight, and horribly so, but…he was taking a step closer to her. He was tipping his head downward. She knew these signs. These signs used to get her heart racing and her spine tingling. Tonight, the signs gave her something like relief; they were indications that maybe he needed the same thing she did. "Would it be weird?" She asked.

"I don't know. But it's not like neither of us have ever been in a weird situation."

Her voice was soft. "I think I might need you tonight, Walter."

His voice was, somehow, softer. "I think I need you, too."

"Where do we want to go?"

"Gar…" Walter trailed off. "Uh. The, um, others…"

"My office," she said. "No one is there."

* * *

It took exactly three minutes the following morning for Paige's determination to not let anyone know anything had happened became completely futile, and the realization came from exactly the person she had expected.

"You invited him into your territory!" Toby said. " _And_  your office!"

Paige crossed her arms. "Are you capable of having a conversation without some sort of weird innuendo?"

"Are  _you_  capable of not hooking up with the former love of your life and potentially messing with his head?"

"I'm sorry, who's side are you on, exactly?" Paige snapped. "Sounds like you're thinking you should have stayed on Scorpion with Walter and his little Florence." She supposed maybe that was unfair. After all, he had been with her the previous night. He wasn't the type of person to be involved, well, sexually involved anyway, with more than one woman at the same time. It seemed that despite Paige essentially ensuring that they would have a lot of time alone together, Walter and Florence had not taken that step.

Toby rolled his eyes. "I can be angry with Walter for being careless and still understand how his mind works. He can't  _be_  your I Need You Tonight. And if this was a couple months ago, I wouldn't be needing to tell you this."

"We  _both_  had a good time," Paige said. It hadn't been mind – blowingly passionate. But it hadn't been bad. It had been familiar, predictable, and exactly what she needed, and that had made it a complete success. He'd told her that he agreed. She'd thought it was the truth.

"What on Earth is going on?" Sylvester asked, walking through the door and dropping his bag down on top of his desk. Happy followed, a box of his things in her arms.

"Paige was foreskin riding last night," Toby said.

" _Toby_!"

"Okay." Sylvester cleared his throat, looking agitated. "I'm just gonna…I'm just gonna go get some air."

"No, Sly, it's okay, we're done, I promise." Toby put a hand on his shoulder. "No stress. No tension. It's going to be a good day."

"Yes," Paige said, nodding. "Exactly. It's okay." Sylvester was quiet. "Honey, it's okay, I promise."

"It's not okay," he said. "We've said that this is so much better than before. But everything that happened the other day, it was…" his voice started sounding agitated again. "This never used to happen before."

Paige rested her head on his shoulder. "I know."

Toby bit his lip. "I suppose we do have to acknowledge it.  _Something_  isn't working."

"You don't even look like you know what that something is," Sylvester said quietly. "And that scares me."

Toby sighed. "Part of it…I mean, Paige, you have to understand you sleeping with Walter makes everything more complicated."

She sighed. "I guess. Maybe."

"I thought you were angry with him, anyway," he said. "We take shots at him in here all the time."

"I was. But we were both…"

"Sex is a fine tool to use to make someone forget about what's wrong in their lives," Toby said. "But it gets a little bit weird when you do it with a person who you were just saying – like six weeks ago –  _was_  one of those things wrong in your life."

"I didn't say he was bad," Paige said, "I said he was bad  _at relationships_."

"I mean…" Happy glanced at Toby before continuing. "You did tell him he had the emotional mentality of a fifteen – year – old and was never going to change."

"Seriously," Paige said, "who's side are  _either_  of you on?"

"If Walter had an adult's emotional intelligence," Sylvester said, "he wouldn't have been so clueless about Florence. He should have picked up on her being in love with him and discouraged it."

"Exactly," Paige said. "And if he wasn't brain cheating, then why not tell me about the lecture? That  _automatically_  makes it clandestine. And we all say things we don't mean when we're mad. Yeah I maybe said stuff that I didn't necessarily mean, but I was pissed. Who hasn't gotten petty when they're pissed? And I had a reason to  _be_ pissed." Paige didn't think she had ever said  _pissed_  that much in one breath.

"I agree him lying to you was wrong," Happy said. "I'm just saying now that we're farther away from the blowup I do think it was a little out of line for you to tell him he never tried in the relationship. You guys had your issues, but he put out a lot of effort. Look at me and Toby. I will be the first to admit I flat out didn't care to try sometimes. I thought that it was inevitable that we wouldn't work because I wasn't worthy of love. But Toby loved me even when I didn't love myself. I'm not saying you're required to put that much emotional labor into a relationship, but I am saying I am so  _damn grateful_  that he did. I'm sure he was exhausted dealing with me at times. But he stayed."

"So I'm a bad girlfriend now," Paige said. "That's it?"

"No," Toby said. "But I think you do have to admit that you and Walter didn't work out because  _both_  of you could get kinda petty and neither of you are perfect at being in a relationship. I don't think an outside person having feelings – unrequited feelings at that – was actually the problem. You know how many relationships would fail if every time someone else had feelings for one of the people in the relationship that meant it had to end? Almost all of them. Including me and Toby."

"You are Toby," Happy said.

"I'm sorry, me and Happy." He shook his head. "We've been wanting to adopt. I don't know how we can while things are like this."

"Don't say that," Sylvester said. He was sitting in his desk now, working his fidget spinner so aggressively that Paige couldn't even see it. He was stressed. He was very stressed.

"Adoption is about found family," Happy said. She shrugged. "If we adopted someone now, what would we be teaching them, if they knew what led to all of this?"

"That sometimes it's okay to let go of family, related or not, if they're bad for you," Paige said. She bit her lip.  _And that sometimes you're so sure of that decision only to wonder later if it was the biggest mistake of your life._


	7. Chapter 7

"Does that make sense?"

Florence studied what Walter had written on the board and nodded. "It does. And I'm confident I can make something like that."

"Excellent. Good."

Now, making his idea and actually applying it were two completely different things. But, in theory, this  _could_  have helped their failed mission of the previous week. So, if it worked, they could prevent the exact same tragedy from happening again. It wouldn't bring back Lane Tracker, but should they somehow encounter an identical situation…

The odds of that were incredibly low. But both Walter and Florence were people who needed to fix things. And assurance that what happened wouldn't happen again…well, it was something.

Walter tapped the chalk against the board. "We can fix this."

She nodded. "I agree." She glanced at the door. Cabe wouldn't be back with food for the better part of an hour, but she still looked. It still felt weird to be alone with Walter. "I think I'm going to go back to my place to sleep now. Now that we have this solution…I think we need to try and move forward from it. Or we won't get other jobs."

"Yeah. Moving forward is good."

Florence wondered if that statement carried more weight than it appeared to at the outset. "Finding coping mechanisms can really suck, huh?"

"Paige and I were intimate the other night." He blurted.

Florence's was surprised, but she knew her face lit up anyway. "Really? That's great?"

Walter looked at her in surprise. "You're…pleased about that?"

"Well," she said, her face growing more typically neutral, "that is a good sign, right?" She started to stammer, unable to stabilize her voice. "I – I mean, it could mean that…that you could…"

"Florence, I do apologize for asking, but is there a reason you are seemingly so invested in me and Paige reconciling? I mean, g – given your…"

"Given my feelings for you?" She said. She could tell by his uncomfortable shift that that was what he meant. "Those feelings are gone, Walter."

He blinked. "Really."

She nodded. "I wish I could explain it. But ever since you've been single, I…I questioned whether they were there in the first place. And they  _were_ , they definitely were, and I don't know what happened to them, but they're gone. And I've wanted to tell you that so we could get back to being actual friends but I also was afraid to tell you because I didn't want you to think I was just making it up because I get off on ruining your family. But that wasn't it. That was not some elaborate ploy put in place the day I met you to make sure it was quiet around here. It was all organic and I don't expect you to understand it because I don't either."

He was quiet for a long time. Florence's heart wasn't exactly racing but was thumping painfully. He was going to blame her, to hate her, to want her gone.  _We've already lost enough._  Wasn't that what she'd said to him weeks ago? She didn't want to lose him on top of everything else, but they were at that precipice and she feared they were teetering right on the edge.

Then Walter sighed. "Okay."

She frowned. "Okay, what?"

He shrugged. "Just processing." He sighed. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all that information, but I am glad you told me. I have been worried about how to act around you, and I am glad to know your feelings are gone."

"Me too," she said. "Even though it's too late. Perhaps if I had only told Paige I had no feelings…"

"She was already breaking up with me," Walter said.

"But it may have salvaged our relationships with Sylvester."

"Maybe. But he was going to ask you out. So…" Walter shrugged.

"Maybe I would have said yes."

Walter raised his eyebrows.

It was Florence's turn to shrug. "I don't know. Hanging out with him was always…easy. And fun. And…I don't know. I really enjoyed being around him." She threw up her hands. "Maybe I would have said what the hell, sure, let's do it. I don't know for sure that I wouldn't have."

"You're just saying that because you know he's in love with you. You didn't before. None of us knew before."

Florence thought back. Sure, maybe she hadn't thought of dating Sylvester prior to…but was  _that_  even true? He was sweet, and hilarious, and they both genuinely enjoyed spending time with each other. Wasn't that what a relationship was supposed to be based on?

She sighed. "I don't know. I'm even newer at this sort of thing than you are."

"I know it's true, but it still seems hard to believe."

She gave a dry chuckle.

* * *

Paige lightly rapped on the door to Sylvester's office. "Hey, bud. How are you doing?"

He was sitting at his desk, head in his hands as he stared blankly at one of his action figures. "I thought better. Now I'm not so sure."

"Oh no," she said, walking closer and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I just wish none of this had ever happened."

"Me too," she said. "But you're a good man, Sly. You're – "

"Not that. I mean, yes, that, but not just that. I wish none of  _this_  had happened." He gestured vaguely to the entire room. "If we had all just…"

"Never met?" Paige couldn't imagine her life without them. She couldn't imagine having lived these past few years without  _any_  of them.

He looked at her in alarm. "No! No." He shook his head. "I mean everything going to crap. As upset as I was…"

"It was so much better than this." Paige gave a quiet nod. "I know."

He looked at her. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

She cocked her head, her hand still rubbing his shoulder. "Sure."

"What are your feeling for Walter, right now? How do you reconcile everything? I mean, you guys just slept together."

Paige bit her lip. "I would be lying if I said I didn't miss him sometimes. Or if I said it didn't feel really, really nice to be close to him again. But how I feel about where we are right now…I don't know. I don't know if we were right for each other. Sometimes feelings are there, but the rest just isn't enough. Maybe one day we can get back to a point where we can be friends. But I don't know how any of us could work with them again, after everything that happened. Despite the  _other_  'everything that happened,' even."

"I know people sleep with people they aren't in love with. And I know that's cool and all. I just can't imagine it. I've never had those feelings for someone I didn't have those feelings for." Sylvester frowned. "That made more sense in my head."

"No, I get what you're saying." Paige cocked her head. "You're still a virgin, right Sly?"

Sylvester wrinkled his nose. "Why does everyone fixate on that?"

"I'm not fixating."

"I see it all the time. Calling people boys, no matter how old they are. I'm a man, Paige. I'm not any less of a man just because I haven't…" he wrinkled his nose, as if a euphemism he didn't care for was all he could come up with.

"No," Paige said, "of course not. I just…"

"You want to know if I ever had  _those_  types of feelings for Florence." Sylvester folded his arms.

"Did you?"

"Maybe. I don't know. I never really let myself think about her without restraint. But I thought about us going on dates, holding hands, cuddling, I suppose in my head there was other intimacy in there."

"Are you still in love with her?"

He shrugged. "What does it matter, now? It's not like we can ever be together. There isn't really any coming back from what happened, not from the perspective of me and her."

"Maybe you still can," Paige said. "There were times when Walter and I both thought we could never happen."

"You and Walter are not the best example of a happy ending."

That was true. Paige tried a different angle. "Cabe and Allie."

"Look," Sylvester said, a twinge of anger in his voice, "I know you would just  _love_  for Florence to settle for me as a consolation prize, but don't I deserve someone who actually, genuinely has those feelings right back? I know what that is like, and I don't want anything less than it."

"Why would I just  _love_  that?"

Sylvester looked at her like it was obvious. "Because if Florence is with me, then she can't be with Walter. And if she can't be with Walter, then that's one less reason to stay broken up with him."

"I have no external motivations to wish you happiness."

Sylvester wrapped the blanket more tightly around him. "Then wish me happiness with someone who loves me, too."

* * *

Florence hadn't realized how much of her life she could fit into one bag. She hadn't stayed at her place in over a week, but her small leather backpack held her clothes and her shampoo and her phone and laptop and chargers. The real Florence, the one that thrived and flourished, it needed more space. The one that used to sleep as a defense mechanism but now dreaded sleep because waking up was so painful, she could fit her entire existence in the twin bed in the airstream. It was amazing how small one could be when everything you knew was coming apart around you.

Cabe knocked at the door. It had to be Cabe, because Walter never bothered her when she was in here, and it wasn't as if anyone else ever came to the garage. "Come in," Florence said.

"Walt said you were packing up. Wanted to see if you needed any help."

"I thought you said you had something with Allie." He had mentioned something about Allie while they ate.

"I said that Allie and I are going to get away for a weekend sometime."

Right. It  _had_  been something like that. "That will be good."

"Yeah. My wife used to do the same, if I was too deep in a job, and she thought I needed to clear my head, you know."

"My wife was my first love," Cabe said.

"That's cute," Florence said. "My mom was my dad's first crush, too." Her dad had died when she was a baby, but she remembered her mom telling her about how smitten he had gotten every time he saw her. He would have hated to know what happened to his wife, ending up in that hospital and wasting away to nothing. He probably would have hated to know where his daughter ended up, too.

"Oh, she wasn't my first  _crush_ ," Cabe said, shaking his head. "That was Sigourney Weaver."

"Really," Florence said. "A celebrity. That's interesting."

Cabe shrugged. "I think a lot of people like celebrities first. I think it has something to do with the fact that there's no way they would ever have a shot with them. Kids are starting to have these new feelings, and so they project those feelings onto someone who is unavailable because they can have those thoughts while knowing they don't have to act on them. Then once they come to terms with themselves, they don't subconsciously feel the need to divert or channel those feelings onto someone else, and they start allowing their brain and heart to like people they have real feelings for."

She was tugging at the zipper on her backpack as she processed what Cabe said. Lifting her head, Florence stared at the older man.

He cocked his head. "What?"

She shrugged, standing and slinging her back pack over her shoulders - both of them, because it was better for her back. "Nothing. Have a good night, Cabe."

* * *

"Hey, Ralphie," Paige called out as she entered the condo and dropped her purse and the jacket that she'd foolishly grabbed, just for something to do, as she had left that morning. Her son was sitting on the couch, his video game controller in his hand, but nothing was on the television.

"Hi, Mom."

"How was school?"

"It's summer."

"I…I know, but I mean, like, college."

"I don't have class today."

Right. Paige walked around the couch and sank down near him. "Are you okay?"

Ralph shrugged. "People keep calling and texting. They want to know about that foster home fire."

"We weren't even a part of that," Paige said, glad that they weren't pestering him about the Miller brothers, but annoyed that people were trying to drag her son into failures he wasn't a part of regardless. "That was Scorpion."

"Well, yeah, but they know we were a  _part_  of Scorpion, Mom." Ralph sounded annoyed. "I can't just erase the fact that that place was our lives for the past four years."

"I know, but we have to try. It's over, Ralph."

"Wow, thanks Mom, I hadn't quite realized until you pointed it out just now."

"Ralph." Paige said sternly. "You don't need to talk back. Just try and remember that moving forward is what's best. No one does any good being stuck in the past, sweetie."

He set the game controller down. "Mom, I don't know exactly what you want from me, but I'm not sure I can be that person. I love you, but I'm old enough to have my own thoughts and feelings."

"Yes. Yes, you are." She nodded. He was extra agitated tonight. "Do you want to talk about any of it? I know it's a huge adjustment for all of us, but maybe whatever you're feeling, we can talk it out."

"We can't talk and make it better." Ralph bit his lip, his irritated façade giving way to a rawer emotion. "We were a family, Mom. I love you so much, but…"

But he missed Walter. He wanted Walter in the same way he wanted Drew all those years ago, except that this time, despite being old enough to understand what happened, it probably hurt more because he knew exactly what he wanted in a father. And even if Paige felt more confident about everything than she did, she knew she could never deny that she basically dangled a carrot. She reached over and tousled his hair. "I'm sorry, Ralph."

"Mom?"

He suddenly sounded scared. Paige sat next to him, feeling protective. "Yeah, honey?"

"Do you think I'll ever be able to find someone?"

She cocked her head, confused. "Of course, honey. Some lucky girl – or guy, I suppose – would be lucky to have you. What brought  _this_  on?" She added, desperate to break the silence.

"I know you told Walter that he was emotionally a child and wasn't ever going to get better. And that your relationship was exhausting to you. That he was a burden and wasn't worth the effort anymore." Ralph's voice was cracking, and it was far too much at once to be puberty. "I am Walter, Mom. Am I unlovable, too?"

Paige thought her heart was actually, physically breaking into pieces.

Before she had a chance to respond – or even come up with anything to respond  _with_  – her cell phone rang. It was Toby. "Hey, it's not the best ti – "

"I'm sure it isn't," he said, "but we have a job. It's in Europe. It's lucrative and it should be easy. Bring the kid, it can be like some sort of vacation. But we have to leave tomorrow or we could lose it to some competitor based out there."

"I – "

"You know as well as I do if we don't get a change of scenery, we're not going to make it."

Paige had to agree with that. She shifted the phone to her other ear, snapping her fingers to get her son's attention. "Pack your bags. We're taking a trip."


	8. Chapter 8

Walter used to enjoy commutes to jobs because it gave the team time to prepare, to be sure they could come out running the moment they hit the ground. Now, despite there being more to do, with fewer members, the productivity was higher due to the need to block out any intrusive thoughts. That meant they were done earlier. That meant more time for anything that could be a distraction, even if that included listening to Cabe's iTunes library.

_Guess you don't know what you want, 'til you see I'm movin' on._

_Making lonely look like freedom – baby, don't even act like I'm doing something wrong,_

_If my song comes on, and I get lost on that dance floor in somebody's arms that ain't yours._

_You can't crash my party with your "sorry"s and "what are we"s._

_Don't start raining on my Mardi Gras parade for a minute._

_I ain't even fixin' to listen to your guilt trippin',_

_You're forgettin', girl, you made your bed and didn't want me in it._

_Whoa, girl, simmer on down a notch._

_Ain't nobody makin' you watch me get my forget you on._

_No, girl, can't touch my good as gold._

_I know it's difficult to see me on a roll, but hey,_

_you broke up with me._

_Yeah, what can I say, babe,_

_you broke up with me._

Walter suspected that Cabe suggest he listen to that song to make him feel better. It was catchy. It was angry in the sense that it was strong.

But strong wasn't a word he thought applied to him. Not about this.

He was sure if Paige told Toby about the two of them sleeping together, the behaviorist would think – he may not say anything out loud, but he would think – that Walter wouldn't be able to emotionally handle it. And that might have been the case, if it had happened for any other reason. He didn't want to be casual with her. He couldn't be casual with her. She was the first woman that made him realize sex could  _mean_  something and didn't just have to  _be_  something. Toby was probably expecting Paige to be the s _orrys_  and Walter to be the  _what are wes_  if they ever spoke of that night again.

He had the same conflicting feelings about it that he did about his and Paige's relationship in general, a weird, uncomfortable mix of want and pride, with a pinch of fear that she wouldn't want to even have the conversation he'd been rehearsing in his head since the day they came face to face in Gettleman's reception area.

The comfort sex didn't complicate that. It was complicated enough already.

Florence sat across from him, her legs tucked up underneath her, her nose in a book. She wasn't actually reading it. He hadn't seen her turn a page in at least twenty minutes, and even if she had, it was a ruse, because the book was upside down, with the back flap in her left hand and the front in her right. Walter felt a pang of what he thought was guilt.

_You made her fall in love with you._

_How did I make her do anything?_

She didn't know – or at least she hadn't told him – why she thought the feelings she had for him were gone. He knew that on some level she blamed herself for everything that happened, and he thought she was wrong about that. But who did that leave to shoulder the blame?

Before Paige, he had thought he was unlovable. But Janice had seen something in him. Then Linda, then Paige, then Florence.  _Was_  he doing something? He understood the basic differences between friendship and romance, but he largely interpreted the difference as the way one felt. Staying late at work and eating takeout with Cabe was very different from doing the same with Paige. And…he realized he had, on some level, been using that logic when he invited Florence to the lecture. It didn't matter that she was his fourth or fifth choice. She was the one he had dreamed about, and he no longer considered what would have been a date with Paige a date because he was going with someone else.

He always struggled with these ideas, these boundaries, what things meant in what context. Maybe he had led her on. Maybe she still blamed herself because she was a good person who, like him, felt she had to carry the weight of the world.

And why did things have to be complicated? Until that night, he had friends who were family, the woman he loved, and the son he never realized he wanted. Now he sat in silence across from someone he enjoyed having for a friend because they were both too messed up for love, even with people who loved so easily and so well.

_I've come to understand that I wanted – want – a relationship, but I was too scared to do anything about it, you know, I would psych myself up too much to actually do anything about it. So like kids fall for celebrities because they can have those feelings knowing they never have to act on them, I started feeling things for you, because you were with Paige and there was no way I would ever have to face it._

Florence had said that to him just hours earlier, when he'd stopped her when packing for this trip to say he was sorry, but he thought she had a better handle on how her feelings fluctuated and he wanted to know exactly what her thought process was on it.

_You were safe. Which, in hindsight, is an incredibly ironic explanation. Believe me, I hate it as much as you do._

He didn't hate it. He was so damn glad there was a reason for it. One that, actually, wasn't that complicated at all.

Next time he saw Paige, Walter resolved, he was going to talk to her. No matter what. He was armed with a new understanding of so many factors that led to their breakup. For someone who became agitated if he didn't know the answer to something, knowing there was no chance of a future with her would still be better than the uncertainty. It would hurt like Hell, but at least he would know.

Cabe reappeared from the cockpit. "We're touching down soon."

* * *

"Alright. I'm Dmitry. I guess my brother asked me to explain to you what we need."

Paige felt a pang of anxiety at the realization that this was two brothers.

"Yes," Happy said, nodding. "All we know is it has something to do with the lake."

"Yes. This is a man – made lake.

The problem that we are having is the irrigation through the pipes out to the farms has been failing. We know there isn't blockage in the lake itself because there is water in the pipes, but it is not flowing through properly somewhere inside. We lack the equipment to find the blockage and also the ability to flush the pipe out without contaminating. I understand you have an engineer and a chemist on hand."

"Actually…" Paige cleared her throat. "Yes, yes, we have both. Happy. Right here, Happy can do both those things."

Toby raised his eyebrows, but Happy grunted and nodded. "Yep. That's me. Machines and chemistry, they just go…hand in hand."

"Good. Excellent. Excellent." Dmitry clapped his hands together. "This is a very important site. We are hoping to create more of these lakes in the future, preventing the water to be wasted in other places and using it to back up the irrigation systems we have in place for our agriculture. It is very important that this experiment we have goes well. There is a basement area to this hut that we have the controls in, that we use to regulate the temperature of what is in the pipes as well as a few other things such as valves and such." He waved his hands dismissively. "We do have a representative for the farms looking into this too, but I do trust we will be able to work this out before them. There is a ten percent bonus if you do."

His look and tone said it all.  _Figure this out before them._

* * *

"Who would have thought we would essentially be sending a miniature Birdroni through a pipe with my cell phone attached?" Toby asked, shaking his head slowly in disbelief as he watched the feed that his phone was providing.

"Of all the weird stuff we've done, you're taking a moment to think about how out there  _this_  is?" Happy asked.

"Shhhh," he said. "Focus on the flight."

"Tell me to shush again," Happy said. "I dare you."

Paige moved across the tiny room to Sylvester. "Hey."

"Hey," he said. "Your phone was buzzing. I think Ralph is texting you."

"I would imagine he's bored, sitting in that hotel room by himself with no laptop," she said. "Hopefully this will not take too long." She shifted her weight. "Hey, I just wanted to apologize for the other day." She reached out, tentatively patting his shoulder. "I know I sounded very…insensitive, perhaps was the word, in getting defensive over what you were saying about…everything." She bit her lip. "I know given our mutual proximity to that whole situation, we aren't the best to try and help each other. But I think we  _can_  help each other by recognizing that and not making anything worse. What…what do you think?"

He was quiet for a moment, then sighed. "I think I hated when our friendship was the least complicated thing in the world."

"Centipede?"

Paige recognized Cabe's voice instantly. She and Sylvester whirled around – and she could see that Toby had, too. Happy was still focused on Mini – roni, but Paige could see how much she had tensed up.

" _Centipede_ ," Walter said slowly.

"Walter," Paige acknowledged.

"Scorpion," said Sylvester.

"Scorpion two point oh," Walter corrected. "Scorpion was a previous version of the company. A much less effective, much more emotionally driven company."

"You were hired by the representative for the farmers," Toby said.

"Brilliant," Walter said. He glanced at Florence. "Captain Obvious here, am I right?"

Florence set her jaw.

Despite their own tension, Paige was still immensely protective of Sylvester. She shifted until she was partly shielding him, in between him and the chemist.

"Well," Cabe said, "it seems to make sense they would have us both here. We are the top two companies in this kind of work…"

"And the farmers contacted a team first, so that would be us as the top, you as the bottom," Walter said.

"First and second, Walt," Cabe said under his breath. "Say first and second."

"Well," Happy said, still not moving a muscle. "We've actually got it handled, so."

"Do you?" Florence asked. "Because our client seemed very confident that you did not have a chemist. I have non – toxic materials in case the pipes need to be flushed."

"Toby, hold this controller steady, will you?"

"No," Cabe said quickly. "You two are not getting into another physical altercation. It's not worth it."

"You and I assign very different weights to worth," Happy mumbled, but she kept the controller in her hands. "This pipe…" she frowned. " _Ethay ipespay areyay ompletelycay earclay . ateverwhay ethay issueyay isyay ashay otay ebay onyay oneyay endyay oryay anotheryay_."

"We may be geniuses," Florence said, "but we aren't stupid."

"Uhhh…" Walter leaned toward her slightly. Paige flinched. "I actually have no idea what she said."

"She said that the pipes are clear and if there's a blockage it's at either end, in the pond or at the farm reservoirs."

Walter raised his eyebrows toward Centipede. "You guys getting a five percent bonus if you're the first team to get the water flowing properly again?"

Paige squared her shoulders. "Ten."

"Interesting." Everyone was still for a moment, staring at each other. "Paige," Walter said, "I realize now is not the best time, but I did want to let you know that it would mean a lot if we could talk later. That said…" As if on cue, Walter, Happy, and Sylvester lunged for the exit. Florence jumped too, but Happy barreled past her, knocking her to the floor. Cabe, watching the circus, glanced at the others and then darted after them.

"Hey, hey, Florence," Toby said, dropping down next to the chemist. "Do not get up. You banged your head."

"Do not touch me!" She shrieked.

"Florence!" His tone made her go still. "I have to check you for a concussion."

Toby, Florence, and Paige. It was the former waitress' nightmare scenario. Well, her nightmare scenario plus Toby. Watching them reminded her of that day on the boat. The day the chemist had almost died. It was difficult to hate her with that memory back in her head.

"I'm fine, I swear," Florence said. "Just let me get up."

"Fine, but you're not taking those stairs. You gotta stay down here with us."

Florence looked almost terrified at that prospect.

* * *

"They said that it wasn't the pond because there was still water in the pipes," Happy said to Sylvester as she quickly untied a canoe from the single dock. "But there's not  _much_  water in them. So there has to be something blocking the vent that the water goes into. If we can find that and remove the blockage, water will rush back into the pipes at full capacity."

"Almost correct," Walter said. He and Cabe were undoing a boat beside them. "It's everything that you said, except that we will be doing it first."

"Well if that doesn't sound familiar," Sylvester said. "Us both having the same idea but you stealing it and getting there first."

"Maybe it's not exactly the same idea, but you took so long implementing your idea that you convinced yourself that I was stealing your idea."

" _Guys_ ," Cabe warned.

"We aren't your coworkers anymore, old man," Happy snapped.

"Hey!"

"Cabe." It was Walter's turn to shoot a warning look.

"What? We can only be upset about  _your_  drama?"

"Walter's drama is everybody's drama," Happy said. "Did you miss the daily memo over the past four years?"

"You can brood about that if you want," Walter said, "we're going out to find this problem." Tossing an anchor, some cables, and a few other things within reach into the canoe, he jumped inside. Cabe joined him, and they pushed off with their oars, rowing furiously toward the center of the lake.

Happy cussed, throwing whatever she could quickly gather into the canoe and gesturing frantically for Sylvester to get into it. Soon, they were in hot pursuit of the others.

* * *

"There are cameras that run out on the cables over the lake, according to this blue print," Toby said, studying a schematic that Dmitry had given them. "It's like a zip line. You can turn the monitors in here on if you punch in…21345589, on that device up there. Looks like it will take two of us to reach it."

"I'll stand on your shoulders, then," Paige said.

"Uh – uh," Florence said sternly. "You want Centipede to be most responsible for this success. You'll stand on my shoulders. If we're going to have to work on this at the same time, we need equal participation."

"Yeah, no, that's not how competition in business works."

"Stand on my shoulders, Paige."

"I don't want you looking up my skirt."

"Why would I look up your skirt?" Florence folded her arms. "Oh, you just think I'm some sort of predatory creep, right? I couldn't possibly just be wanting to help."

"It's not help, it's trying to worm your way into our cut of the pay."

"Or it's me calculating the height of this room and if you stand on Toby's shoulder you'll have to balance and hunch over which will increase the likelihood of toppling over. If it's the two of us, you have an inch of space."

"How about you stand on my shoulders, then?"

"You think you're stronger than me?"

"I think I'm taller than you and it would lower our center of balance."

Florence blinked. "Fine."

"Florence, with your head injury…" Toby started.

"You're not my doctor and you said I was fine anyway."

_Will you three just figure something out if it's that damn important?_

Right. They'd forgotten that all their coms picked up everyone's frequency.

Somehow, with Toby's help and a lot of fumbling, Florence was perched on Paige's shoulders, bracing one arm against the wall while she punched in the camera code with the other. They were treated, as a result, with a birds – eye view of the section of the lake that the two canoes now floated over.

 _Okay,_  Walter was saying,  _this application…which shall remain nameless for Scorpion two point oh's company confidentiality…_

Paige and Florence both rolled their eyes.

 _It seems there is something significant blocking the vent that is stopping water from being sucked in,_  Walter continued.

 _Centipede Partners is confident we can break it up,_  came Happy's voice.  _We are heading back to shore to pick up a few extra things._

 _She's going to create an underwater blast to clear the mass,_  Walter said, s _he is not fooling anyone. Blast fishing is a practice used in several countries, including…_

 _Oh look, Walter getting in the way,_  Sylvester said pointedly.  _That's new._

Paige was no longer touching the other woman, but she still swore she felt Florence tense up.

The three of them watched in silence as the two canoes rowed back to the shore, and to Paige, it felt like hours before they were heading back out. "The picture isn't crystal clear," she said, "but it looks like both canoes are tethered to the shore?"

"When the vent is cleared, water will rush in," Florence explained. "That will cause some suction, like if you're near a ship when it sinks you can be drawn under with it. It won't be enough to damage the canoes, but since there is a bonus involved, they want to make sure they aren't working too hard against the movement of the water so they can maximize efficiency in getting back to the dock and reporting the solution."

_Oh. Oops._

"What's the problem, Walter?" Paige asked, out of habit, realizing after she'd spoken that they weren't working together on this one.

Well, they were.

In a weird, awkward way.

_We didn't leave enough cable to row all the way…why are you asking?_

"Force of habit, honestly. Sorry."

"I'm sorry too, you know."

Paige was quiet. She knew he wasn't talking about anything to do with this case. She opened her mouth, wanting to tell him to keep to the task at hand, or to give him yet another lecture about timing and tact.

What came out was, "I know. I am, too."

_This job…it all feels like it matters again._

Now, the flashback went to months before Florence fell off the boat. Suddenly they were dancing at Happy and Toby's wedding, all over again.

"I know what you mean."

 _Hey,_ came Cabe's voice.  _I think we all really want this conversation to continue, but both our cable lines are a bit too short to reach where the vent is. Anyone have any solutions that doesn't involve us rowing back again?_

"Does Happy have the blasting equipment in the Centipede canoe?"

_That I do, husband._

"Okay. Walter, can you swim with that anchor?"

_I can._

"Bring it over there. Happy will attach what she has, and then you drop it right over the vent. The vibrations from the blast should shake loose whatever is blocking the vent. The water will run through the pipes again, freely, pass through the filters, and go into the reservoirs."

"Isn't this kind of thing very, very bad for the ecosystem?" Paige asked.

"Extremely," Toby said. "But this is a fairly new man – made lake. There's no coral reefs and few if any fish."

 _So we have to work together,_  came Sylvester's voice.

"Unfortunately, yes," Toby said.

 _And we can do it, because we're all grown – ups,_  came Cabe's voice, pointedly.

Paige, Toby, and Florence watched as Walter eased into the water, lugging the anchor awkwardly the twenty or so feet between the canoes.  _Once this is laden down,_  he said,  _I don't know if I can get it to the vent before it blasts._

_Sylvester, you can swim, right?_

_Excuse me?_

_You get in the water with Walter and help him lug the anchor,_  Happy said.

_Absolutely not._

Walter coughed.  _If it makes you feel any better, Sylvester, I'm not thrilled about it either. We need to take our coms out so they don't get wet._

_I swear to God, if you two don't stop acting like three – year – olds, you'll have to go to that shady hospital we passed on the way in to get my foot surgically removed from your colons._

Paige wondered if Cabe had a threat that wasn't some variation of kicking people in the ass.

 _Okay,_  came Happy's voice. They could see Sylvester begrudgingly slip into the water.  _Explosives…attached, now swim out to the point between our canoes and thirty feet up. And hurry!_

It was a very deep lake, and even with the heavy weight, it would take a little bit for the anchor to settle on top of whatever was blocking the vent. They dog paddled like mad. Paige held her breath, and she had a feeling Toby and Florence were following suit. Walter and Sylvester reached the spot, letting go of the anchor, then casually treading apart and backward before turning to swim back to the respective canoes.

What happened next somehow seemed to be in the blink of an eye and in agonizing slow motion at the same time. A ripple came from under the water. The pipes screeched. A funnel formed. Walter and Sylvester, both with their hands on the canoes, screamed in panic as they were ripped free, shooting back across the water as the canoes strained against the cables that held them.

"The suction!" Toby shouted.

 _The suction!_  Happy shouted in unison from what felt like was a world away.

Walter was going hard against the current. Sylvester seemed more afraid, locking up, letting it drag him while his screams were heard faintly in their ears via Happy's com. "Swim!" Paige shouted, knowing it was futile. They were moving so fast…so fast toward…

"Sly,  _swim_!" Florence yelled, the hoarseness in her voice making her descend into a coughing fit.

Their bodies collided, they spun in a circle, and then they were gone underneath the water. Paige opened her mouth in shock, no sound able to come out. Toby lunged for the controls.

"Sylvester!" Florence screamed. "Sylvester!  _Sylvester_!"

"We have to shut off the pipes!" Toby shouted, pulling hard on a lever. "If they hit that vent at the speed they're going to be attaining, they will be killed!  _Why! Won't! It! Move!"_

Paige and Florence joined him at the lever, placing their hands at different points and pushing down with all their might, shouting at it to move, hoping when it did, that it wasn't too late.

"Push harder!" Toby demanded.

"I'm trying!" Paige shouted back.

"You can't die," Florence grunted, almost under her breath but putting out too much physical effort to make any sound quiet.

With a whine, the lever moved, shifting completely to the  _off_  position. The pipes creaked again. The water slowed to a natural flow.

"Are they okay?" Florence asked, wringing her hands, her voice sounding shrill. "Are...is he...did we...?"

Paige's eyes were wide as she stared at the monitors. Her lips moved, no sound coming out, but perfectly forming his name.

"Come on, guys," Toby mumbled. "Come on."

Paige didn't notice she was gripping Florence's arm until she realized that the other woman was gripping hers right back. There were tears in the chemist's eyes as she stared, unblinking, waiting for some sort of sign.

Paige turned her eyes back to the screen.  _We were working together. We don't fail when we're together. Come on. Come on. Come on._


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, an update within a week on this one! I would like to have it completed by September, but we shall see. I'm glad everyone seems to be enjoying it so far. I realize it's impossible to satisfy everybody in terms of what they want to see in season five, but my hope is that I'm creating something that has at least something for everyone while wrapping things up (or not – as my regular readers will see in this chapter, this fic ties in to something else I've written!) in a way that is also satisfying for myself.

_Come on, come on, come on._

Florence was breathing hard, Paige knew both of them were close to tears, but other than the sounds of trying to stay under control the three of them stood silently in the control room, shoulder to shoulder, watching the monitors, hoping Cabe or Happy would speak, shout that they saw something, that they hadn't pushed the lever down too late. They couldn't be too late. She couldn't lose them both. She and Walter were getting close to something again, Ralph was here in this country and hadn't even seen him…and whether he wanted to resume a relationship with her or not, she just wanted him to be okay. She didn't need anything else.  _Just stay alive. That would be enough._  That had been her sentiment that day he'd been buried in sand, that no matter what his secret was, she knew keeping it was eating him up inside and no matter what it was, they could get through it.

Because she loved him.

She'd lost sight of that later that night. She'd let her insecurities get the best of her, let every little thing she'd never talked to him about bubble up and boil over. And while they had already been getting somewhere – he'd wanted to talk to her after this case – she still hated that it took this, standing thousands of miles away from home clutching hands with the woman she had blamed for all of this worrying about if he was even alive for her to realize that when everything else was stripped away, what remained was that one singular, irrefutable fact.

She loved him.

"Walter," she whispered, almost too quiet for herself to hear.

The idea that maybe pieces of him were floating aimlessly through the pipes just inches away…Paige turned away from Florence and vomited.

"They made it," Toby said, reaching over to grab her arm and help her straighten up and turn back toward the monitors, not even acknowledging her having lost her lunch, "they had to have."

"They had to have," she repeated quietly. Florence said something, a single syllable, too quiet for Paige to make out.

On the monitors, the slightly grainy images of Happy and Cabe remained still, standing in their respective canoes, stoic and grim as they stared out at the water.

* * *

Walter hadn't gotten a deep breath in before being pulled underwater, but until the suction stopped, he had wondered if it even made a difference.  _I'd just be alive long enough to be sliced into pieces._  But when he found himself no longer hurtling toward oblivion, he had to remind himself not to panic, to make the air last as long as possible so he could find his way back to the surface.

He felt a bumping at his feet which had to be Sylvester. Walter didn't know if the younger man was above or below him, or even right next to him – perhaps Walter was vertical to the surface. He was disoriented, adrenaline rushing through him, and he knew that Sylvester had to be feeling the same things tenfold. They were running out of time. They had to get air. But he didn't know which way was up.

So Walter went still, relaxing his core and his limbs, knowing his body would naturally start to rise. When it did, he realized he was still right side up.

That meant Sylvester was below him, and since he hadn't started to rise himself, Walter pumped his arms, pushing himself downward, fighting his survival instincts. He had to have moved downward at least five feet when he felt the thrashing again, and he reached down, locating the younger man's wrist and tugging.

Sylvester got the memo. Lungs aching, they kicked toward the surface.

* * *

Happy scanned the lake, her heart in her throat. Everything had happened so fast. Ever since she had fallen in with Walter all those years ago, she was used to things not going as planned. But things always ended up okay. Always. Always, always, always. Even though the team wasn't together now, not formally, they had worked on this as a unit. They'd done so while bickering before. And they always made it.

She and Toby had planned to reveal their news after this job. She couldn't imagine doing so if they'd lost their friends. She couldn't even imagine  _going through with it_  if they lost their friends, but she knew they would. They would need some way to heal.

They needed that regardless of the outcome today. Sylvester didn't deserve to die still having not come to terms with the fact that he had killed someone, albeit in self – defense. He was getting better, throwing himself into things, pushing through in a way that made her immensely proud and immensely sad that Megan wasn't around to see it.

And Walter. She was irritated with him. She was almost always irritated with him; it was part of their relationship, but she knew that no matter how imperfect he was or always might be, he never stopped trying. She recognized the way he had been acting all day. Pride, yes, but wrapped around self – preservation. He wasn't immune to the struggling they were all facing. And he deserved to at least say to Paige whatever it was that he had wanted to say.

She saw something – perhaps a mirage? – and she leaned forward slightly, shifting her weight so as to not overbalance the canoe. And then suddenly, like a sea creature launching itself airborne, Walter and Sylvester broke the surface, face to face, gasping and floundering. There was a gagging noise, and coughing, and Happy dropped into the canoe, cutting the cable that tethered her to the dock and rowing like mad. In her ear, she could hear the reactions of those in the control room, heard both the men's names, heard  _thank God_  and  _help them!_  and other words which were drowned out by crosstalk.

It appeared clear to her that Walter was choking. She yelled as much to Toby, and as she reached him, her husband's response reached her ear. "His body probably took over and made him gasp for air just as he was breaking the surface and he's trying to cough it up. Once he has something to grab he should be able to."

"Walt, get hold of this!" She called, extending her oar. Walter grabbed it, pulled himself in against the canoe, and gripped the edge of it with both hands, coughing furiously. Happy extended the oar again, pulling Sylvester in against the canoe. "My glasses," the younger man gasped, wiping his face and pushing hair out of his eyes, "my glasses."

"So not the important thing here," Happy said, reaching down to touch his shoulder, needing to make sure he was real. "You idiots need to not scare us like that."

"Sylvester!" Happy jumped, not realizing Cabe had reached them in his canoe. "Walt may be hacking up a lung, but you haul yourself up into this thing and we can start heading back. Happy can take care of him. Yeah, Happy?"

"Yep." Happy put her hand up to her ear. "Is he gonna need a hospital, doc?"

"Probably not. But I'll check him over when you get him back."

"Happy?" Came Walter's voice.

She leaned over. "You okay, boss?" The word was out before she realized what she'd said.

He was giving a slow nod when he coughed again, and then Walter lifted his head to look at her. His eyes were red. "I need to know you don't hate me."

It wasn't what she was expecting to say, but unlike when she'd called him boss just moments before, this time what came out of her mouth was genuine and careful.

"I don't hate you, Walter. I never could."

* * *

Sylvester wrapped the blankets Cabe had pulled from Scorpion 2.0's van more tightly around him as they made the slow walk back to the control room. They could see Dmitry outside, talking rapidly and with wild gesticulations as he stood in front of Paige, who had her arms crossed and was staring at him in a way that would likely make Happy Quinn proud. If he was making excuses, Paige wasn't having them.

Walter and Happy caught up to them as they made their final approach up the hill – well, the slight incline – that led to the entry door. As they neared it, he saw the other two appear, Toby with a hand on Florence's back as if to guide her up the final stairs. He wondered what on earth had happened. He supposed Toby might tell him later, when they were on the plane ride home.

Paige caught their movement and Sylvester saw her eyes flicker over toward the four of them as they approached. She said something briefly to Dmitry, then started toward them, her eyes locked on Walter. He picked up his pace slightly, and when the gap between them closed enough they threw their arms around each other, clinging together as if nothing had ever been wrong.

Toby left Florence's side, rushing up to Walter, demanding the second that he and Paige broke apart to know what, if any, symptoms his former friend was having. "I'm fine," Walter grunted. "Just another close call. Day in the life of Scorpion."

When Toby raised his eyebrows, Sylvester wondered if that meant the behaviorist also noticed, like he had, that Walter hadn't added  _two point oh_  to the name of his company. "Regardless," Toby said, "I would like to give you a once over."

Walter gave another annoyed grunt.

"Hey," Paige said, walking around the two men and back over toward where Florence stood, awkwardly, off to the side. Sylvester's eyes shifted from Walter and Toby to the two women. A few months ago, he would have considered it 'stealing a glance' at the woman he was falling for. Now he didn't know exactly what he felt when he looked at her. It certainly didn't feel good.

"Hey," Florence said, taking in a breath. "That was pretty harrowing."

Paige nodded. "I uh, I just wanted to extend you an olive branch. It's a figure of speech," she added at the baffled look on the chemist's face. "I think it's time for us to let bygones be bygones." She gestured toward where the Centipede van was parked. "Can I talk to you? Over by the vans?"

Florence hesitated. "Will bygones still be bygones by the vans?"

Paige gave an amused smile. "Yes. Come walk with me?"

"Be careful walking," Toby called over his shoulder as he attended to Walter, who was sitting on the stone ledge near the entry door.

Clearly Sylvester had missed something. Well…he'd missed a lot. But clearly he had missed something specific in regards to  _today_.

"I do want to check you out, too," Toby added, gesturing to Sylvester. "Walter doesn't seem to have aspirated enough water for there to be a concern, and I don't think you inhaled any, but we can't hurt to check." Sylvester nodded, surprised when Happy squeezed his arm. He'd forgotten she was standing there. "Okay," he said. "Where do I sit?"

* * *

"I hope you don't mind me pulling you away from the group like this," Paige said. "But you know how they get. Nosy. Butting in."

"Yes," Florence said carefully.

"And so, uh, you know, I just wanted to talk to you and say that I know you didn't do anything wrong."

Florence looked confused.

"What I mean," Paige said, "is that it's not a crime or a betrayal to have feelings for someone. You didn't act on them, and you didn't even tell Walter you had them until after things happened. Me being insecure didn't mean he was going to…do anything with you. Now, I don't know if anything has happened since I left, but I do understand that he's single and you're single and so if anything did, that's both of your prerogatives."

"Nothing happened. Neither of us had an interest."

Walter had told Paige as much. But hearing from both of them that nothing had…the slight unease in Paige's stomach evaporated. "Okay."

"My feelings for Walter were fleeting. I was projecting my desire for a relationship onto someone who was in one, because then I could know I wouldn't have to act on the feelings. I'm still learning how to come to terms with things that may be more real. I don't know that I'll ever be good at it."

"You will be," Paige said. "Walter was far worse than you when I met him.

Florence gave a small smirk, and then sighed and lowered her head. "I do want us to be friends. I know maybe that isn't possible or isn't realistic, but I would like that. Regardless."

Paige reached out and touched her arm. "I would really, really like that."

Florence smiled a warm and genuine smile, her cheeks turning slightly pink. "Yeah?"

Paige nodded, feeling a warmth toward the woman that she hadn't felt in a long time. "Yeah. One hundred percent."

"Is this the part where we hug?"

"Oh." Paige shrugged. "I didn't know you…"

"I'm not. I'm not big on hugs. But I understand that you are. So I thought this would be my olive garden gesture."

"The phrase is…never mind." Paige opened her arms, and Florence smiled, stepping forward and hugging her back.

* * *

Sylvester answered a handful of Toby's questions, no, he did not swallow water, yes, his heart was starting to chill out, no, he didn't hit his head, before asking why he was so concerned about Florence walking around.

"She got knocked over trying to rush out of the control room with you guys," Toby said. "She hit her head. She seems totally fine, but you know, the doctor in me."

"She's okay, though?"

"Yep. I think so."

"Good." Sylvester gave a slow nod.

"Does anything hurt?" Toby asked him. "Anything else I haven't already covered, I mean.

Sylvester gave a dry chuckle. "That's a loaded question." His eyes shifted back to where Paige and Florence stood. They were a ways away, but they seemed to be smiling. "Well, those two appear to have made up."

"Good," Toby said, looking where he was and nodding. "It does certainly seem that way. Body language becoming more and more relaxed."

"Yeah, good," he said quietly. "I suppose."

"Something else is bothering you." It wasn't a question.

Sylvester sighed. "I saw the way Paige looked at him when we came up from the lake."

Toby nodded slowly. "I was in the other direction. Saw the way he looked at her."

"They're going to get back together."

"Yeah."

"You agree?"

"Oh yeah."

Sylvester cocked his head. "You've always thought they would, haven't you?"

"Yeah."

"Ever since the team spli – "

"Yeah."

Sylvester was quiet a moment. "Well, I'm happy for them." And he was. Even though things still hurt.

"Where are you and Walter at right now?" Toby asked.

Sylvester shrugged. "We obviously haven't had time to talk about things, but…" He bit his lip and nodded. "I can't blame him. It isn't his fault that she developed those feelings. He didn't encourage them by wanting to be her friend. He didn't even know that I was in – " He sighed, shaking his head. "Even if he did know. It's not like anything was ever going to happen with me and her."

"Well," Toby said, "never say never."

"Technically speaking, I didn't say never. But that doesn't change that I'm not the one she has those feelings for."

Toby sat back, studying Sylvester, then glanced over toward where Paige and Florence were still standing, still talking. Sylvester looked, too. Florence was laughing at something. She was beautiful. He pressed his lips together, digging his heel into the dirt. The behaviorist pursed his lips.

Sylvester raised his eyebrows at him. "What is it, Toby?"

"You shouldn't be so sure about that, either." Toby shifted his weight. "I know you're sure that she's in love with Walter, but…"

"You heard her. You were there."

"Well, now it's my turn to point out word choice," he said, holding up a hand. "She never said she was in love with Walter. She said she had feelings for him. There's a difference. You were the one who brought up love, and it's because that's what you feel for her."

"Whatever."

"Listen to me," Toby said, his tone both stern and gentle. "I was in that room with Florence and Paige when you and Walter went under. You two were together, both with equal likelihoods of survival."

"Okay…"

"Sylvester, Florence was out of her mind." Toby's eyes were serious, staring at the younger man without blinking. "You guys were drawn under and she started screaming your name. She kept muttering about how you couldn't die. I don't know that she was aware any of that was out loud, but that doesn't make it any less real. She and Paige were standing there next to me, arm in arm and with tears in their eyes, looking the same, but the primary worry was about different people. When that fear hit us, when we were faced with the possibility that it was all going to end…Sly, she chose  _you_."

Sylvester looked away from Toby, back to Florence. Toby knew what he was talking about. Toby wouldn't lie to him. Toby liked to play games, to antagonize and instigate, but he wouldn't play those games here. But… "she doesn't know that I shot Garrett Miller."

"Sly," Toby said, and Sylvester knew what he was going to say because he had said it already, dozens of times, "you're a hero." He reached out and touched the younger man's arm. "Ladies dig that, you know."

Sylvester cracked a smile in spite of himself. "Did you have this same pep talk with Walter?"

"The same one? No. Those two love each other and they both know it. His was more tough love. 'You told her you were gonna talk to her and so you'd better,' that kind of thing. And he's going to. So you should do the same and talk to Florence."

"But what if she – " He cut off when Toby's eyebrows shot up. "Okay. I will."

"Trust me, Sly. I'm sure she was worried about Walter, just like I don't doubt Paige was worried about you. But if Flo'd had the chance to save one of you, Walt wouldn't be talking to Dmitry right now."

"Hey, am I interrupting?"

They looked up to see Cabe approaching. "Hey, old timer," Toby said. "You're free to sit as long as you're sure you can get up."

"Very funny." He eased down next to Sylvester. "How you feeling, kid?"

Sylvester was looking over at Florence again. "Better. Maybe."

Cabe followed his gaze, a slow smile coming over his face as he looked back next to him. "Good. Good. It's uh, it's good to see you guys. Toby, how's you and Happy's adoption quest coming?"

As if on cue, Happy walked out of the entry door. Toby waved her over. "Actually," he said. "Hey guys!" He called over toward Paige and Florence, and at his hand motions, they headed over. Walter was already in earshot, looking over at him curiously. "Okay," he said, clapping his hands together and rubbing his palms slowly. "So, Happy and I have an announcement to make."

"Oh my God, you're pregnant," Walter said.

Toby blinked. "No. At least, not me. Hap?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. That would be quite ironic. But if we can redirect back to our currently planned route to having a family…"

"Oh. Adoption, right. Duh."

"Walt, we don't need a running commentary," Toby said pointedly. Walter cleared his throat and took a tiny step back. "Anyway. We visited a little boy a little bit ago, and things have progressed pretty quickly thanks to Allie, who knows someone in child services. Sorry, Cabe, we asked her to keep it quiet."

Cabe shrugged. "Every relationship needs a few secrets. Having your own life is healthy."

Paige glanced Walter's way.

"It isn't official yet, but it will be pending some home visits and the verification of paperwork that has had lost copies. The circumstances, too, have hastened the process."

"I'm sensing some sort of gratifying payout to accompany this buildup?" Florence asked, cocking her head.

Happy and Toby looked at each other and smiled, then faced the group again. Happy was beaming. "His name is Tad Lascher."

"Lascher." Florence frowned. "That sounds…"

"Familiar?" Happy asked. "It should. You and Walt and Cabe have met this little guy already. In fact, you saved his life."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for the conclusion! Spoiler alert – Cabe is the only adult not to kiss somebody and Ralph and Walter are reunited.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. The last chapter of the fic I hoped you all would never have to read. I hope you've enjoyed it. I know I said in my last Conflict A/N (which is technically a sequel to this fic) that I've been spending more and more time away from the fanfic world since I saw Wicked, and how the new perspective I have has made me happier, but that doesn't mean I don't love writing and reading (and I am still going to finish reading the WIPs I'm working on, promise). It's just made the cancellation less consuming for me. That said, editing this last chapter so near when our premiere should have been was still hard. Knowing this kind of thing is all we'll ever have is still hard. But I'm okay. I hope you are too, whether it's this fic, other fic, or real life that has helped you get there. We all deserve to be okay.
> 
> Including these characters. So, without further ado…

Walter felt the pit in his stomach as he approached Paige. She was chatting with Toby, smiling and chuckling at something he had said. Walter was hit with nostalgia, suddenly back at Kovelsky's, watching her smile and laugh and dance while he worked up the nerve to tell her that he loved her. He couldn't decide if this time was more or less nerve – wracking.

She turned to him when he got close, a smile still on her face, though he couldn't tell if it was genuine or the polite, professional one she used with clients. It definitely was not the smile she used to smile only for him. "Hey."

 _Hey_. Not  _hi_. That was a good sign. "Are, uh, is it okay if I steal you away for a bit?"

"Sure," she said, her smile slightly more relaxed. Behind her, Happy approached Toby, and he wrapped her up in his arms, leaning her backward and kissing her like they were newlyweds. "Gross," Sylvester said with a smirk as he passed by. Walter couldn't help but notice he was walking to where Florence sat, up near the observation building.

"Great," he said in response to Paige's reciprocation. "Uh…" he looked around. There wasn't really anywhere to go that was private. But being out of earshot was what really mattered. "Down this way?"

She nodded, and they walked side by side down the path to a bench that was…Walter cocked his head. The bench was chained to the concrete slab it was resting on. Apparently, people stole benches around here. "Crazy day, huh?"

Paige looked at him like he had three heads. "That's putting it lightly, wouldn't you say?"

He shrugged. "We've had crazier ones. Nuclear weapons, death by island…"

"You've never been so close to dying as you were today."

He disagreed, but he wasn't going to argue. Now wasn't the time to make her think he was invalidating her feelings. "I try not to dwell on that. I'm alive, and that's the preferred outcome." They had reached the bench, and he gestured to it. "Would you like to sit?"

"If you sit next to me."

He smiled, feeling his heartbeat pick up the pace.  _Another good sign._  He thought back to the way they had clung to one another when he and Sylvester had come back up this path. In that moment, he knew without reservation that he was where he belonged, bumps in the road be damned. He was willing to work on whatever was necessary.

He just hoped she was, too.

"I, uh…" he slapped his knees. "I've missed you. And I know we – I know that we've – it's not like I haven't seen you at all. But I have. Everything back from when you worked for Elia, about how things don't feel real if you're not there…I said as much over the coms earlier, but I'm saying it again because I mean it that much."

Paige nodded. "Walter…" she sighed. "It's the same for me." She closed her eyes, her nod turning into a headshake. "You have to know it' the same for me."

"There isn't anything between me and Florence," he said. "I promise. There never was, not like that."

Paige bit her lip.

"I  _do_  get mental stimulation from her," he said. "But also from Happy. From Toby, Sylvester…Ralph…" He paused. "I never considered hanging out with any of them as being unfaithful to you, so with Florence, it didn't seem any different."

"But it was," she said, "because you never had dreams about any of them. Subconscious  _means_  something."

"In this case, it was because she found me," Walter said. "And my head put me in a place where everyone else was better off but me. I was worse off. Being with her was in a world where everyone else was happy but me."

"I know." She nodded slowly. "It's just hard to shake, Walter."

"I know." He cocked his head, watching her. But there are things…aspects of the relationship between you and I…that I can't get from anyone else. That I don't  _want_  to get from anyone else. And just because I'm a genius doesn't mean those things aren't extremely important to me."

She smiled, giving a slightly nervous chuckle. Walter reached over, curling his fingers around hers, much like he had that night that his sister had died.

"I just want you to be honest with me, Walter," she said, her voice laden with emotion.

"This isn't just about the honesty. This isn't just about me."

She cocked her head in confusion."

"I know you have had a lot of people lie to you, and keep things from you maliciously, and I completely understand how I came off. But…you threw out all these things…I'm immature, I'm exhausting, I was a bad date…"

"I didn't mean those things. I was angry."

"No," Walter said. "You  _did_  mean them. I know they aren't as big of problems as they may have seemed in that moment, but you did mean them." He paused. "I need you to tell me if something is bothering you. Even if it's a little thing, even if you think you're showing your love by letting it go. It builds overtime. The drains in the lake back there…if they were checked periodically and cleared, things would have continued to work. But they weren't, and so much built up that there was no other way to address it but with dynamite. And that nearly ended in disaster." His voice grew quieter. "It's just like what happened with us. You told me once that relationships are messy. That it's their nature. I know there will be more mess. But if we check in, if we take it all seriously…" He paused again, feeling almost too emotional to continue. He cleared his throat. "I don't want any more dynamite. I don't know if we could survive another blast. And I hate that, because…because I couldn't stop loving you if I tried. And believe me. I tried."

Paige was quiet. He knew that look, when she lowered her eyes slightly and her lips pressed together. She was thinking, mulling over what he said, considering rather than dismissing. He could stand to do a little more of that, too. After what felt like a lifetime, she gave a slow nod. "I hear you. I think that's a valid concern."

"If I'm talking too much about science on a date, just tell me. I always want to impress you and make things interesting and fun but if you're not feeling it…" he shrugged. "I can tailor the subject matter to things that are more strictly romantic. But we can't stop communicating. That's always been what gets us."

She nodded. "I know. That part is my fault. I made you feel like you couldn't tell me things. The effort…the effort we put into dates that aren't our style, that's both of us."

"And keeping secrets from you when your exes have a history of that," Walter said, "my fault."

"Pride, both of us."

He nodded. "I agree."

"Insecurities, me." She wiped her eyes. "I think deep down, a part of me was looking for a way out as soon as anything happened that was less than perfect. That way, if this ended like every other relationship has, then I could pretend like I wanted it to, like it wasn't that good anyway, that it was you, and not me." Paige sucked in a breath. "I spent so many years with people asking me, why don't you leave him? About Drew. And I guess that meant as soon as there was any hint of trouble with us, I was thinking back to that, and thinking I have to do better this time, I have to get out. And what I hadn't really taken into consideration was that just by being with you I had already done so much better. It just worries me. How important intellectual stuff is to you…how will I ever know that you won't get bored?"

"How do you know that when you're with someone like you?" Walter asked. "Compatibility on paper doesn't mean anything. What matters is how we feel and how much we're both willing to fight for it. And I'm not spending another second of my life taking you for granted."

"Good. Because I'm not going to take you for granted either."

He nodded with a smile. "I'm willing to work on all of what we've listed. A – actually," he said, stammering slightly as he corrected himself, "I'm wanting to work on it."

She smiled that smile she wore when he did something with a strong E.Q. He knew his correcting his diction had been the right decision. "I want to work on it, too." She leaned in slightly, breaking their eye contact to briefly look slightly lower. "I missed you."

He leaned in, meeting her in the middle. Their kiss was soft, gentle, committed and yet aware that they were in sight of the others. He lifted his hand up to rest against her jaw, fingers threading into her hair. He felt her hand come up to his neck, and he exhaled through his nose, grateful for her touch.

"Wow," she said with the smallest of giggles, a pink twinge in her cheeks, "I somehow forgot what a romantic kisser you are."

"I'll do my best to be more memorable this time around," he quipped.

Paige nestled her head into the crook of his neck.

* * *

Sylvester's heart still fluttered when he looked at her. That part hadn't changed any more than his feelings had. But it was a different kind of flutter now. It was like walking on land versus trying to run in the water, constricting, tiring. Hanging out with her used to be so easy, and now he knew how Walter must have felt when Paige dated other people right after he'd come to the realization that he loved her.

He believed Toby when he told him that Florence had been worried for him, but what if that worry came from her feeling bad for breaking his heart? What if she was focusing on him to try and lessen the pain of losing Walter? There was only one way to find out, but he wasn't sure he had the guts.

She looked at him. Crap. He'd stared just a little too long. "Sylvester?" She asked, lifting her eyebrows and giving him a small smile.

"Yeah," he said, as if she needed confirmation on his identity.

Florence cocked her head. "Can we go somewhere?"

"There's a bench by…" one look in the direction told Sylvester that option was out.

Florence came up to stand next to him. "They're going to be okay, I think," she said. Then, in a lower voice, "I hope."

"They're holding hands and smiling at each other," Sylvester said. "That's generally a good sign."

There was only a few inches of space between them, but it felt like much more with an actual physical barrier. Sylvester sighed. "I know we need to talk. I just don't know if I'm ready for it."

"Oh, I know I'm not ready," Florence said, "but that's why we got this way in the first place, so we should go anyway."

He didn't quite understand, but at least one of them seemed sure about something. "Okay."

"Maybe down in that little room where we were before?"

"Sure."

He let her go down first, and she settled on the bench adjacent to the controls. Sylvester felt a shiver go down his spine. He wasn't used to returning to the site of where his life was saved. He pushed that thought out of his head as he sat next to her. "I want to apologize for letting my emotions get the best of me that night. I acted like a child."

"No you didn't," she said. "I blindsided you."

"No you didn't." He shook his head. "It's not like you knew I liked you."

"No, I did," she said. "What I didn't…I…when you said you were in love with me, that threw me off. But I knew you had…well, I thought it was a crush. And I feel like I encouraged it."

"I didn't view it that way. But I thought you felt the same way as me, so since you didn't…"

"I don't  _know_  if I did or didn't," she said. "Ugh." Her head dropped into her hands. "I had an idea of how this was going to go…what I was going to say. And now it's just…the words…the order of the words…"

"Well, here's what I want to say," Sylvester said. "Today has made me and I know others feel like maybe the team can be a team again. I want that. And if you want to be a part of that team, I want you to be there with us. I don't want it to be weird. And it will be. But that doesn't mean we have to let it get the best of us."

"I appreciate that," she said quietly. They sat in silence for a moment, Sylvester not having a clue how to continue and Florence wringing her hands as if, for once, they actually were thinking the same thing. Then she cleared her throat. "That day Ralph and I went to Chem Con, he started going on about how you were so good at so many things, and I remember feeling…something strange. Like I was inadequate. I felt insecure. None of that is new to me when it comes to being with people, but I wasn't used to it from an intellectual standpoint." She shrugged. "I didn't know why then. I thought it was my competitive streak coming out. But it didn't fire me up and make me want to suddenly master other things, and I'm not used to that sort of thing making me feel…down or dejected." Florence looked at him again. "That confused me, and then alarmed me, and…" she dropped her eyes to her knees. "And I just became a mess that almost destroyed everyone."

"I don't follow." He wished he could follow. This seemed difficult for her to talk about. But he couldn't connect the dot that was Ralph telling Florence he was good at lots of things and Florence becoming the main reason the team fractured. He didn't even agree with that point.  _We had problems before. We just didn't acknowledge them. We pretended that ignoring it would make it go away._

"Walter and I have a lot in common. And he was with Paige. So when I started wanting to be in a relationship, I subconsciously directed my feelings to him, because I would never have the chance to act on those feelings. You know, like how you say you'll do something  _when pigs fly_? You say that because you know that means you won't have to do it. But I didn't know that's what was going on. So when directly confronted, I confessed to my feelings for Walter. I thought they were real. But as soon as he and Paige broke up, as soon as Walter and I started hanging out as two single people, I realized they were gone. I wished I'd never told him in the first place, because now they weren't applicable."

"That's very confusing," Sylvester said. "I mean, it makes some sense, but…it's very confusing."

"Imagine how it felt to be me, working all that out!" She shook her head. "Cabe helped with that. I'm not sure he's aware of how much." Tapping her foot, Florence looked down as if she hadn't been sure where the sound was coming from. "I didn't realize any of it at the time, but I was doing it because I was scared. I don't know how to be in a relationship. I don't know how to be vulnerable in those extra ways. And every time you let someone in, there's a chance they could choose to leave. And if you feel inadequate, that fear is exacerbated. That was a problem for Walter and Paige, and that's a problem with me when it comes to you."

"Me?"

She wrung her hands again. "I think I felt inadequate and sad when Ralph told me all those things about you because I was afraid I couldn't possibly measure up." She let out a breath. "I think I've liked you this whole time and let myself get all confused and misguided and everything could have been different if I wasn't such a moron."

Sylvester's brain wasn't sure what to process first – her guilt or  _I think I've liked you all along_ – so he stayed quiet for what he felt was an awkwardly long time. Finally he found words again. "I need to promise you that what happened wasn't your fault."

She sighed. "That's what Cabe said, but…"

"There was always going to be someone who came along that liked Walter. Or Paige. Maybe even openly flirted or actively tried to break them up. If you having unconfirmed feelings did that, they might have been destroyed for good had someone else come along. I was angry, but at him, not at you. The team breaking up was all of our faults, mine included." He sighed. "I don't want you to blame yourself for this."

"I'll do my best. But you have to promise to try to not blame yourself for what had to happen in Arizona.

He felt off balance, even though he was sitting down.  _Don't topple over._  "You know about that?" He felt nauseated.  _Don't throw up._

She nodded, biting her lower lip. "I know you think you did something wrong."

"I killed someone."

"It was  _self – defense_."

Sylvester blinked. That wasn't what the others had said. The others had come out with  _you saved us, you're a hero,_ and  _you're not a killer._  Florence was different. Those four words were different. They were saying  _yes, you_ did _kill someone. But it's okay._  He felt less woozy. He gave her a slow nod. "Thank you."

_She calms me._

He'd had that thought before. Years ago.

"So we've talked about that," Florence said. She fidgeted, clasping her hands together. "So now I think we need to talk about the other thing I said."

The other thing. The  _I think I've liked you all along_  thing. Sylvester breathed slowly through his nose. "That thing."

She nodded. "I…I, uh…"

Her voice was quiet, lacking substance. Sylvester was again conflicted, between feeling bad that she seemed so anxious and feeling optimistic as to what her nerves could mean. "It's okay. Take your time."

"After Lane Tracker died, Walter and I spent a long time trying to come up with a solution, you know, if the exact same scenario transpired again, this is how we would fix it."

"Walter and I would do that, too."

She gave a small smile. "So you know. When you're not feeling right, you need to figure out why. I focused on why I kept feeling sad when I saw Walter and Paige, and I outsmarted myself and thought I had feelings for Walter, but what I wanted was to be loved the way Paige was – is – by him. And I didn't stop to think about why I was always so happy around you." Her eyes locked on his. "And that was it, right there. I never felt I had to try and figure out why I liked hanging out with you so much. I didn't stop to think about why I was happy. I just  _was_." She shrugged. "It should have been just that easy, but I have to make everything complicated and I hurt myself and you in that confusion."

Her hands were shaking. Sylvester hesitantly reached out, placing one of his over one of hers where it rested on her leg. She smiled – just a little. "I guess a downside to being a genius," he said, "is we think too much."

"Yes." Him resting his hand on hers meant their bodies were closer, angled toward one another. Her eyes lifted from their hands and locked with his. "And that means we miss ob…observations."

"Observations?"

"Yeah, like now." Her voice got quiet again.

Her eyes were putting him in a trance. "What are you observing now?" he asked softly.

He could barely hear her answer. "My heart is beating really fast."

He kissed her, gently, wanting her to know she had the option of pulling away. By her reaction, it seemed she wanted him to know she had no intention of doing so. His hand curled around hers, and he felt her squeeze it right back, her mouth pressed firmly against his. She was inexperienced, but not detractingly so, and his breath caught when she slid a hand up to his neck and ran her tongue along his lip, melting into it like learning how to kiss him was the easiest time she'd ever had acquiring a new skill. His free hand slid around her back, holding her near him. When their lips parted, they stayed close, staring at each other. Her mouth was slightly open, her face flushed, and he was sure she saw the same when she looked at him. "There's one more thing," he blurted. She nodded, and he thought she was going to respond, then realized the nod was encouragement to continue. "I'm in love with you. I know you're not there yet, and that's okay, but – "

"I'm not there yet," she confirmed, nodding again and then cocking her head. "But is it bad that a part of me is so happy that you are?" She reached up to adjust his glasses. "Just give this a little time, okay?"

He smiled. She smiled. Then she leaned in, brushing her lips over his again. Before he could really kiss her back, there was the sound of footsteps, then a thud, and they jumped, scooting a respectable distance apart just as Toby came into view. Florence wiped her mouth. Sylvester adjusted his sleeve.

The glint in Toby's eye told them that they hadn't fooled him. "Excellent," he said with a grin. "This was going to be the harder one."

* * *

Dmitry and his brother arranged for them to fly home on what Toby called "a super fancy – ass plane." Happy knew the name of it. Paige couldn't remember what she'd said.

Ralph and Walter were off at the other end of the hanger talking. She'd been so nervous when she and Walter had gone back to the hotel room for her to pack and pick up her son. Their little vacation would be cut short. None of them wanted to stay in a strange new place after the harrowing experience on the case. They'd all had enough of the strange and new.

Well, except for Sylvester and Florence. But that was the good kind of strange and new. They were already on the plane, scouting out sleeping quarters near each other. "You know you can share a bed without doing the do, yeah?" Toby had asked them. They'd both rolled their eyes.

Ralph had recognized, before either Paige or Walter told him, that they were giving their relationship another try. His response had been to wrap Walter in a bear hug, his eyes squeezed shut like he was dreaming and didn't want to wake up. Then he'd kissed him on the cheek before turning to his mother.  _Is this for good?_

_I think so, Ralph. I really think so._

She and he had had a good talk. Paige hadn't realized until after Arizona how much her relationship with her son needed repairing as well, but they were off on the right track, even going beyond the fact that she was back in a relationship with the only person that would ever truly be Ralph's dad. Her and Walter might be complicated, but the older genius's relationship with her son had always been one that was meant to happen, both of them always waiting for the other and always ready. She was sure this date would be another that Ralph would work into coding. If she did that sort of thing, she would use it, too.

Because it was also the date that Team Scorpion got back together. That development was less than two hours old, but Paige was sure the feeling wouldn't be fading any time soon. There would be lots of readjusting – Walter and Sylvester had talked before they all made the decision, but they would still take time, as would both she and Happy with Florence and Cabe with all the now former members of Centipede, but  _they would be okay_. There was nothing to make Paige doubt that now.

"Hey everyone," said the pilot, leaning out the door. "Time to board."

They found a sleeping area near the front of the plane – Happy and Toby had taken off toward the back to FaceTime with Aimee Tracker and little Tad, next to where Cabe was already snoring, and Sylvester and Florence bunked up across from each other in the middle. Once they were in the air and able to move freely around the cabin, the fatigue set in. "Come get in here with us," Paige said to Ralph. "You're not too old." Walter scooted in first, and Ralph followed him. Paige lay down next to her son, sticking her backpack under her head for added support.

"I missed you guys," Ralph said, laying on his back and staring up at the tiny reading light bulb. "Like, as a unit."

Walter smiled. "I missed you two as a unit."

"And I missed you two as a unit," Paige added. "So you might say that Walter and I getting back together was pretty efficient, huh son?"

Ralph smirked, then looked at Walter. "She thinks she can just bring up efficiency and get us all gooey."

"Are you saying it doesn't work?" He joked.

Paige reached out across her son to take Walter's hand. "There's a song that talks about not realizing how great things are until they're gone, and then  _you're gonna miss this,_  and  _you're gonna want this back._ " She smiled. "I'm glad this was something we were able to get back."

"Me, too."

Ralph was quickly falling asleep between them. Paige thought she was tired, but she and Walter didn't fall asleep for hours, not wanting to stop looking into each other's eyes as the world spun below them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END


End file.
